Canadian vs. British M.Sc. Graduate Programs

Graduate School
1

<p>Thanks for taking the time to read my post! I am an American student applying for 1 year masters degree (taught as opposed to research) programs in chemical engineering and biomedical engineering using a scholarship that applies only to institutions abroad. It is my goal to work in managerial consulting after I graduate, and I am trying to find a program that will give me both depth and breadth in the field of chemical or biomedical engineering, be prestigious to the extent that it is easier for me to be hired at a mangerial consulting firm, and offer the opportunity to achieve high marks with hard work (I've heard that with some graduate schools especially abroad, it is uncommon for students to earn straight-A's and these are what I need to get a decent job). </p>

<p>I have contacted prospective employers about this decision, but I have received no specific preferences. Here are the options that I have narrowed down:</p>

<p>England (program length: 12 months):
University of Bath (accepted)
University of Birmingham (accepted)
University of Manchester (accepted)
University of Nottingham (accepted)
University of Oxford (waiting for response)</p>

<p>Canada (program length: 18-21 months):
McGill (accepted)</p>

<p>All of the programs are in chemical engineering with exception to Oxford, which is biomedical engineering. For the purposes of this discussion, it is fine to assume that Oxford is not on the table. My goal is to find out what program or even what country/location of study you would recommend and why.</p>

<p>Thank you very much for taking the time to review my question. I greatly appreciate your help, and please let me know if there is anyway that I can help clarify my situation.</p>

<p>Richard</p>

2

<p>Hey Richard,</p>

<p>just to clarify, wou're not considering Oxford? (just asking because I wanted to comment on Oxford...which is obviously not helpful if you're anyway going somehwere else ;))</p>

3

<p>Hey desemejante, </p>

<p>Please feel free to comment on Oxford. If it doesn't help me, I'm sure it would help somebody else. However, I don't know if I will be accepted to Oxford. So, information about the differences between Canadian and U.K. graduate programs or the other graduate programs mentioned would be most helpful. </p>

<p>Thanks for your help,
Richard</p>

4

<p>First of all, to find out some specific information about UK schools/course try
<a href="http://www"&gt;www&lt;/a>. the student room .co .uk
remove the spaces and this will link to a board like thos one for the UK.</p>

<p>
[QUOTE]
I've heard that with some graduate schools especially abroad, it is uncommon for students to earn straight-A's and these are what I need to get a decent job

[/QUOTE]

The UK undergraduate marking system is
1 or First
2.1 or upper second
2.2 or lower second
3 or third
pass without honors
fail</p>

<p>You only need around 70% to get a 1st and that is hard to achieve. Getting an average of 50% is perfectly normal.</p>

<p>However, masters degrees can be weird because some universities use the undergrad marking scheme, wherease other grade
distinction
merit
pass
fail</p>

<p>It depends on the university which one they choose. Best contact the specific universities (or just look on their web-sites) to find out which system they use.</p>

<p>I notice from your choices that you have chosen 3 big cities (Manchester, Nottingham and Birmingham). Bath is very different from these being tiny, and infinitely lovely. The entire city is a world heritage site. (I highly recommend going for a swim in the actual hot baths. It costs £20 for 2 hours but it's so worth it). I like it, but compared to your other choices, and even Oxford, it is going to be small and quiet.</p>

<p>Sorry, I don't know anything about Canada. But I think all your choices are good and probably you will be happy wherever you go.</p>

5

<p>Hi cupcake, </p>

<p>Thank you very much for all of the extra information. </p>

<p>Richard</p>

6

<p>I hate to break it to you, but trying to get hired as a management consultant on the back of a degree from any of those schools besides Oxford will be tough. The only school in there that has anything approaching world class name brand recognition is Oxford.</p>

<p>If you plan on working in Montreal, McGill is a good bet, but that again is a degree that carries weight mostly in Montreal and to a much lesser extent the American Northeast. The rest of Canada pretty much hires from their own regional schools.</p>

7

<p>Hi jmleadpipe, </p>

<p>I appreciate your advice. What would you recommend given my current acceptance situation, and my desire to eventually work in the U.S. market? In terms of general teaching in engineering, are you aware of which programs offer the best training? What is your background if you don't mind me asking?</p>

<p>Thank you,
Richard</p>

8

<p>Rfox,</p>

<p>I'm not so sure I understand what youre career path is. You said you want to work in management consulting but also inquired about teaching. As far as teaching goes, I really have no idea what school would be best, but in regards to managegement consulting, I can say the following:</p>

<p>1) I'm not that well acquainted with the UK schools you have been accepted to, but I am sure they are all fine institutions. When I said that they wouldnt help you get a leg up in MC in the US, I didn't mean that as a slight to any of those schools but rather because American MC firms generally hire from the top American schools. This is not a hard and fast rule, but if your ultimate goal is to do MC, especially at McKinsey, Bain, MCG et. al. then the best best is always to go out and get a grad degree from the biggest american school possible. UK degrees on the whole, as well as most Canadian degrees, have mediocre market value in the US where regional schools often dominate.</p>

<p>2) Although I don't know that much about UK schools, I am well acquainted with McGill since I live in Montreal. As far as engineering goes, they reputation is good but not great. Their overall reputation as a school is good, but it really isnt as good as their promotional pamphlets would let you believe. McGill is a school which does a very good job or marketing their brand name to future students but not so much to actualy employers in the sense that McGill students often think they are going to a Cornell/Darmotuh caliber school when American employers actually see it as the eqivalent of a very respectable state school. I know several (dozens, actually) McGill grads and most of them are enjoying very interesting and gainful employment but all of them are working in either Montreal or Toronto. A few are working in the Northeast, but usually in areas where their particular degree is sought after. I'm sure McGill students would debate this ad nauseum, and recent rankings like the THES (which are horrible Commonwealth centric) might lead you to believe that McGill has considerable international reach, but this really isnt the case. I'm sure many Americans know about it, but its a school that simply doesnt have enough money, enough faculty, or high enough admission standards to really compete with the American big boys.
Consequently, American employers will likely treat a degree from McGill with a great deal of respect, but it wont get your foot in the door if you plan on working for a big time MC firm. Plenty of McGill grads do work for McKinsey in Montreal or Toronto, but again, so do a lot of grads from HEC, Concordia, Queen's, York, and U of T.</p>

<p>That said, I think McGill is a good school and you could do far worse for a grad degree. Especially in sciences they have a strong name and I think a lot of future employers will appreciate that. It does not, however, have an Ivy League type cach</p>

9

<p>jmleadpipe, </p>

<p>Thanks! That definitely helps. Just to clarify, my plan is to pursue managerial consulting, but it is my hope that the graduate education I will be getting in engineering is not simply a stepping stone to that position. The quality of the "teaching" is very important to me. Once I earn the degree, I would hope to work in either Montreal or (preferably) London and then go back to the United States, but still work for the same organization, such as the ones with a large international presence that you mentioned (e.g. Bain).</p>

<p>Richard</p>

10

<p>Rfox,</p>

<p>Although I dont know how things work in the UK, I know that McKinsey et al have offices in Montreal that are staffed primarily by graduates from Montreal schools (HEC, Concordia, McGill especially) and a Msc. in Chemical Engineering would be more than enough to get your foot in the door. I don't know how easy it would be to get transfered to an american office however, as I have no clue how things work in a MC firm.</p>

11

<p>Hi, </p>

<p>I think cupcake has given you really good advice. Bath would be completely different to Birmingham, Manchester and Nottingham and it really does depend on what you’re looking for and what you want out of your year.</p>

<p>Do you like big cities for example? Birmingham, Manchester and Nottingham aren’t your stereotypical “beautiful cities” like Bath and Oxford are.</p>

<p>Nottingham is notorious for gun crime (the only city in the UK where police carry guns apparently!) but my sister went there and although she was regularly burgled, she did think the medical school was good and her friends are lovely so everyone’s different! </p>

<p>Based only on location alone I’d personally chose Oxford first (easily), then Bath, followed by the other 3 tied but that’s the way I am and I’m basing that on the beauty of Oxford and Bath. </p>

<p>As far as academic reputation goes, Oxford is by far the best and no matter what your final degree classification is the very fact you attended Oxford will look good. </p>

<p>The UK system is so different from the US – you just have to explain to potential employees the different marking scheme. I’ve recently applied to the US and to be honest it is a nightmare – I have a UK first class degree but it translates so badly into the US system it’s a nightmare! </p>

<p>I also notice you’ve applied to a different program at Oxford from the rest – be careful and weigh up what program you actually would enjoy more but to be fair you could always change once you’ve been accepted!</p>

<p>GOOD LUCK</p>

12

<p>P.S if you look at a map, Bath is really close to Bristol which is also a lovely city and very big. My friend lives in Bath but works in Bristol, if that helps...</p>

13

<p>Hi UK_student and jmleadpipe, </p>

<p>Thank you very much for your help. Based on your advice, I think that it is safe to say that I have narrowed the field down to McGill, Manchester, Oxford (if accepted), and possibly Nottingham (only because I noticed they have a lot of recruiters coming to their campus). I do prefer the big city, but I am basing this choice on program prestige, academic strength in engineering per surveys like Guardian (newspaper), and my interactions with the faculty and staff over the phone. </p>

<p>The only thing working against McGill is that the program is 8 months longer than the programs in Britain. This may be alright, but it is difficult for me to determine if this will add a lot of value to my education for the extra time that I could be working. I don't know how much of a difference there is between a British MSc and a Canadian MSc in terms of company perception other than the time difference.</p>

<p>Once again, I appreciate your help, and if you have any other ideas, please let me know.</p>

<p>Thank you,
Richard</p>

14

<p>OP, given your priorities I'm surprised you don't have Imperial College or the University of Cambridge on your list. Both these universities have bigger "brand names" for MC than all the universities on your list except Oxford, and both of these schools are more respected for engineering than all the universities on your list, including Oxford.</p>

15

<p>Hi nauru, </p>

<p>Thanks for the advice. Unfortunately, I was limited to a certain group of schools for the scholarship. If I attended a (post-)graduate program in London or Cambridge, I would not be able to use my scholarship money.</p>

<p>Richard</p>

16

<p>Ah, that explains it. Fair enough. </p>

<p>Strange scholarship though. I'm trying to imagine an economics scholarship that stipulates it cannot be used to study at LSE or Oxbridge.</p>

17

<p>That is indeed a strange scholarship...</p>

<p>As I said before, if you want to leverage your degree into a MC position, the only one of those schools that will do it for you on a global scale is Oxford. The rest are very regional as far as I know.</p>

<p>I wonder why you didn't have the University of Waterloo or the University of Toronto on your list for Canadian schools. Waterloo has the best engineering programs in Canada and Toronto is generally acknowledged to have the best grad programs and most marketable brand name in Canada.</p>

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<p>^ Seconded.</p>

19

<p>^Also agree</p>

20

<p>In fairness though, my comment above was probably unnecessary since OP's decision is already made. Hindsight is always 20/20 and I don't think McGill is, by any stretch, a BAD choice. I think the biggest problem with McGill as far as international students are concerned, especially at the grad school level, is that they will shamelessly promote their school to you in terms or telling you exactly what you want to hear as opposed to what the truth is. The fact is that the one grad program that is truly world class at McGill is medicine, but that certainly doesn't stop them from telling you that whatever grad program you are signing up for is also top notch even if it isn't. As a result you have a number of McGill graduates who expect big things out of their degree that it does not necessarily deliver. This doesn't mean it isn't a marketable degree, especially in Canada, but rather that the school as a whole seems OK with peddling false hopes to UG and grad students as to the value of the McGill brand name.</p>

<p>I have some real reservations about the honesty of their public relations people over there, but I guess that is a whole other discussion that could be done somewhere else...</p>