<p>I am a Taiwanese student in New Hampshire, and I am now struggling to choose between U of T (St. Michael's College) and Lehigh University (P.C. Rossin College of Engineering and Applied Science). My intended major is computer science (but maybe I will change it in the future). Both of the schools are good for engineering, and the campuses are gorgeous.
U of T has a higher ranking, and it is really convenient (city and transportation). However, I am really afraid about the big class size. Lehigh University will have a smaller community, and I can keep staying in US (easier to find a job in US in the future?).
So does anyone knows about the class size of University of Toronto? And how easy it is to change a major?</p>
<p>Class sizes are big for basic subjects but as you go to higher levels, they become much smaller.
I do not know how easy for one to change majors unfortunately.
Between the two, I think it is a no-brainer. Go to UofT.</p>
<p>UofT class size is very large for the first couple years and then shrinks drastically in the third and fourth years. Don’t put too much stock in rankings systems, as they tend to heavily weight research activity and output, which is UofT’s shining areas. Many very good universities that focus on undergraduate education tend to suffer on these rankings as a result (ie. Dartmouth College usually ranks lower than 100). You will likely have several classes in your first couple of years there with lectures with several hundred students, so if you really can’t handle that UofT may not be the best place to be. If you are interested in research UofT is excellent because there are plenty of opportunities to get experience either in labs as an undergrad, which looks great for either job applications after graduating or for grad school.</p>
<p>I have had many classes that were also small in the first year. A lot depends on major and college. First year psych for instance is quite large. But as others have noted class sizes drop considerably in 2nd and third years.</p>
UofT is one of the top 20 universities in the world. No one outside the US has really heard of Lehigh. Also, international tuition room and board at UofT is half that of Lehigh.
You want to be successful academically, so do what my son is doing – go find UT and Lehigh’s archived final exams in the subjects you will be studying and see how you fare with them. If you’ve taken Calc II or III in hs, start with that one. Look at the core curriculum in each school. I’ll bet that Lehigh has more required courses than UT; will that matter to you? Does cultural diversity matter? Off the bat, I’d say UT has much depth and prestige; however, we spent hours reading students reviews online, and the ones for UT were scary and depressing, and the grade deflation issue seems pretty serious.