<p>Im a canadian from toronto living in california, ive never even been to the province of alberta but i applied to UCalgary. I just wanted to know what its like.</p>
<ol>
<li>whats the education like</li>
<li>Is it a good looking campus</li>
<li>Whats the social aspect of the school</li>
</ol>
<p>etc...</p>
<p>add in any info you feel is important in giving me a good preview of the UNiversity of Calgary</p>
<p>i’m from alberta trying to go to the us.</p>
<p>university of alberta is definitely a better university than u of c.</p>
<p>The engineering school has a good reputation. But it’s known as a commuter school and is otherwise a bit lacking.</p>
<p>On the plus side, Calgary is nice.</p>
<p>Education = average. Engineering and the Business schools are the big winners. Anything else is kinda ‘meh’.
The sciences buildings are old (built in 1960s), but well kept. Just don’t expect fancy landscaping, elaborate ivy-league-esque castles, or glass buildings for that matter. The only building that looks new is the ITS, and that’s only from the outside. Inside, it looks like an incomplete warehouse.
Social aspects wise, people are very friendly and are willing to help you out if your lost/in a jam. Class sizes aren’t too big, from what I’ve seen walking around campus. Twenty-ish per lab class?</p>
<p>If your coming to Calgary, please bring a car. It’s a PAIN to go anywhere without a car. Waiting for a bus in -40 weather in the winter will guarantee you a frost bite. The LRT and buses are few and far in between, unless its during rush hours. Expect at least 7 months of snow (Oct-May). Summers are nothing unbearable; there’s always a slight heatwave during the first two weeks of July, but you’ll live if your fan’s working. </p>
<p>Calgary’s not a cheap city. A fast food meal at the mall will cost you at least $7.99, and you have to buy a drink separately. Go to an average restaurant (Cheesecake Cafe,Boston Pizza), and you can be paying $17 for a plate of pasta. Then again, I think the minimum wage here is $9.40/hour. $50/week on groceries, $40 if you’re really thrifty. </p>
<p>The city is quite dull, IMHO. If your into cultural diversity and a lot of city spirit and crap, don’t come here. Go to Toronto, Vancouver, or Montreal. Heck, U of T is a much much better school than Calgary in virtually EVERYTHING.</p>
<p>I don’t know why the hell anybody would want to go from living in California to going to school in Calgary. There are better colleges in better cities in both California and Canada.</p>
<p>does anyone have anything good to say about U of C</p>
<p>Average entering class had an overall grade percentage of 83%. 68% graduate within 7 years. 10% of students are from outside Alberta, and 2% are from outside Canada.</p>
<p>^ Need I say more?</p>
<p>I said something nice, what does the campus look like?</p>
<p>guys…?</p>
<p>The campus is alright, there’s a lot of green space throughout. When the weather’s nice, there’s places to sit outside and have lunch by the pond, etc. There’s random statues around campus which are interesting (e.g. the metal thing near science…my friends and I have never been able to figure out what it is…I say it’s something like a turkey or a peacock :P)</p>
<p>u asked for an opinions, u got opinions and from what i see, they’re all pretty crappy.
if ur going to u of calgary for the next 4 years…i feel kinda bad for u…</p>
<p>DBassily, you seem like the type of person who enjoys seeing the best in all things, so by all means go to the University of Calgary and challenge yourself!</p>
<p>shut up mustafah, where do you go, probably some lousy college no ones heard of, im sure you dream of getting into calgary and since you got rejected you spend all your time hating on it on online forums</p>
<p>uh, bassily, no need to throw a fit…</p>
<p>i’m pretty sure that given ur able to type on a keyboard, u can get into the university of calgary…</p>
<p>^ I’ve always hated the Canadian mentality of hating on certain colleges/universities. Its rampant at our school… thus the stupid sayings “if you can hold a fork, you can go to Brock”. Do Americans make up stuff like this? Anyways, people should get past their preconceived notions of what makes a prestigious college… because when it comes down to it… in the long run, your school name will not help you. Your skillset will be of more importance and I still maintain that, whereever you go, if you work hard and maximize on your opportunities, you will be fine.</p>
<p>OP, I honestly don’t know much about the University of Calgary. Apply to a bunch of places… but the best advice I can give you is to ignore the juvenile posts which are unfairly attacking U. Calgary. Research the campus and try to visit it… maybe you’ll love it.</p>
<p>i’m not hatin, i’m just saying how u of calgary lacks the resources, prestige, funding to be a top university even in canada.</p>
<p>honestly OP, i’m telling you this for ur own good. i dont no about ur marks, but at least try to get into u of a</p>
<p>DBassily, I wrote the stats about Calgary but I would like to point out that although the entering grade % is “only” 83%, that is not remarkably different than the entering grade % of 86, which holds true for schools like University of British Columbia, U of Toronto, Western (only Queens and McGill are higher than 86). These are all fine schools. I strongly doubt you could sit in a set of 101 classes at the UCalgary, U of Toronto, UBC, and so on…and tell the difference. Most Canadian education at the undergraduate level is not that different across schools. The vast majority of students in Canada tend to go to one of the schools in their province so there isn’t the sense of competition and rank across the universities- for the most part, they do not have giant differences in selectivity (as do American schools), the students are not that different from one school to the next, the schools are not competing with each other to ‘win over’ students and charge them $200k, so the schools really are not that different from one another. They are all public institutions, mostly there to serve a wide range of students in their province. </p>
<p>U of Calgary is a pretty nice campus. They have study abroad. Lots of sports and extra-curricular activities. Also an amazing medical school (that offers a unique accelerated program of 3 vs. the typical 4 years). </p>
<p>The size is pretty ideal. It’s not a gigantic 40,000 student campus like many in the California system or Canadian system, yet it’s big enough (at 20,000 students) to offer tons of types of degrees and courses, to feel you’ll ‘get lost’ and the faculty are very active in research (great if you are interested in graduate studies to get involved in research). </p>
<p>The province of Alberta has done exceptionally well in the past decade, and it shows well in the big $$ they have poured into higher education. </p>
<p>The current Prime Minister of Canada has his two degrees from the University of Calgary. Now perhaps he’s not so liked by quite a few Canadians (including me), and that might explain why people are down on the school. However, as such a notable alum, among many many others, its obvious this school can prepare you very well for success in life. </p>
<p>(as an aside, asking anonymous students on a forum about their opinion of a Canadian college is probably not worthwhile; most have never been on a campus before, other than maybe one they have attended; they haven’t hired students from these schools nor selected them for graduate school).</p>
<p>Alberta = Canada’s Texas. We got oil and cows. None of the schools in Canada are ‘elite’ schools. You’re going to get everything from the stupid slacker scraping by with sixty percents to the overachiever pulling off 90% on every tests; as an added note, there is much more of the former. </p>
<p>I’ll take another jab at the freaking weather. It’s been SNOWING since 8AM (8PM here now).</p>
<p>But yeah, you can’t really tell the difference between decent sized Canadian schools. U of T = UBC = McGill (I’m not going as far to say Calgary is on the list, it’s still a step down in my opinion). Just because the province is rich due to the booming oil industry, it DOES NOT mean that all the royalties that they collect are coming back to the people. The inflation here will make your eyes bleed at price tags, especially if your income isn’t from Alberta. I’ll admit though, the University is making attempts with campus expansion, tech. equipment upgrades, etc. But keeping in mind that the boom occurred in 2006/2007, we are still a ways away from completely catching up in terms of technology compared to what places like Vancouver and Toronto already have. </p>
<p>I’ll take a stand here and say that U of C’s med school is pretty good in Canada. </p>
<p>Don’t come here unless you’re bent on drilling oil. Every single good paying job has something to do with the oil industry. Yeah, we’re kinda obsessed with digging up and tossing 'em into a big furnace and watching 'em burn.</p>
<p>
Yes, they do.</p>