h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

A proxy request here from my niece who is off later this year (all being well!) to study physics at university in England.
However, the course she wants to get on to offers the opportunity to spend one year of the degree studying abroad at a partner institution.
Of the countries available she seems most interested in Canada, and the universities on offer are:

McGill University
McMaster University
University of Alberta
University of Toronto
University of Waterloo

So, has anyone got any experience of any of these universities and their local student population? And indeed what local area is like, how the students and university interact with the local community and so forth. Just anything that could help her in her decision if she does go for it. Size of uni, reputation, student makeup all that sort of stuff.

Any replies gratefull received and will be passed on.
Oh, she is a self proclaimed science geek so more likely to be into libraries, books, films, science than fashion and nightclubbing (although that isn't to say she won't change!).

I know it is a bit woolly asking this sort of thing, but any opinions or experiences of those institutions welcome.

Not sure if Montreal counts as a foreign language destination though. I know Canada is officially bilingual, but as she is not a French speaker the uni here might not let her go.

I got my undergrad and graduate degrees at the University of Alberta.

Of course, it was more than a quarter of a century ago.

I have a nephew who finished up a science degree a few years ago and a niece who got her nursing degree very recently, both from the U of A, so, I guess it's still a functioning institution.

I also have a friend who's a prof in the Agriculture faculty.

It is a rapidly growing university, now spread over three campuses which are linked by our LRT system (tube, subway, metro), South Campus is mainly Phys.Ed. and athletics, the downtown campus is mainly devoted to Business subjects and the Main Campus has pretty much everything else.

As I remember them, the University Libraries are very good.

I'm sure your neice can find this on her own but: http://www.ualberta.ca/

and this is good about the student population: http://www.uofaweb.ualberta.ca/facts/nav01.cfm?nav01=94745

I will say something about how the university and the local community interact: The main campus is at one end of what is called Old Strathcona (the neighborhood where Jaz'd and I live). For a brief period about a hundred years ago, it was its own city here on the south side of the river and it has always remained a little different from the rest of the city. The University and Strathcona have grown up side by side and have intertwined: most of the staff and students who live off campus live in Strathcona. I think most would agree that the University is a part of Old Strathcona, not something separate.


Rather than repeat myself about the local area, I'll just link to my Edited Entry on the subject: A997833

And some of these might be helpful: A2681372


I'm going to mention this thread on the Chief Gordon thread as well.

Well I was at McMaster (or "Mac" as some people insist on calling it) for nearly two years, so I should be able to comment.

It seems a fairly small uni to me, but then my other experience is at Leeds. It's a little out of the city of Hamilton, in a place called Westdale Village that isn't really a village, but has quiet streets, lots of nice houses, some shops, a nice library, a cold single screen cinema (there's a larger cinema in the city centre and a multiplex not too far away) and the Snooty Fox English Pub and Restaurant. They serve Boddies, but don't ask for it by that name or you get a strange look. There's a lot of suburban sprawl the other side of Main Street.

The campus sits above an offshoot of Lake Ontario known as Cootes Paradise, which is very scenic except for one island that's been destroyed by bird guano. In between there is a managed forest called, oddly, the Royal Botanical Gardens, in which I often saw deer. You can enter directly from one of the uni's many sports fields.

Let's see, I found the university library had all I needed, which was mostly old maths books and a lot of journals. The students were a friendly enough lot, mostly from southern Ontario. I never knew of any problems with the local community, but probably didn't see that much of them either.