Tell me about Canadian universities!

[boxofdelights]

My son, who has one more year of high school, is rethinking his decision to go to CU-Boulder, where he'd get in-state tuition, a perfectly good undergraduate education, and to go skiing every weekend.

I don't know where he got this idea, but he's considering McGill and University of Toronto. Canada is cool, he says. And Canadian universities are very reasonably priced for their quality. Did you know that? I did not know that. His father suggested the University of Minnesota, which is also excellent and has very reasonable out-of-state tuition, but Minnesota is not cool. (I do not understand how Canada is cool but Minnesota is not. Apparently it is an If you have to ask, you'll never know.)

So, what's it like, being an American undergraduate in Canada? Especially in Montreal? Will he be miserable and lonely if he doesn't speak French?

Comments

[rushthatspeaks]

I have very little experience of being an undergraduate in Montreal, but I do visit Montreal fairly frequently, and it is a lovely city with magnificent food and an interesting culture. Also McGill is a university with an international reputation for excellence.

Things to think about, though: yes, not speaking French (in Montreal, I don't know about Toronto) will be a significant disadvantage and he should be prepared to study it, and also aware that Canadian French and French French are not at all the same thing and that therefore the default French instruction available in the U.S. will not help at all. Yes, the prices of Canadian universities are astonishingly reasonable... but the U.S./Canada exchange rate is strongly in Canada's favor right now and that doesn't look likely to change any time soon. Make sure he is doing all tuition and cost-of-living figuring with a very pessimistic idea of how the exchange rate will do.

The change in climate between Colorado and a Montreal winter will be drastic and shocking. Yes, you get snow in Colorado. You do not get snow like that. Unless people also build houses in Colorado with an automatic airlock-like bootroom area between outdoors and indoors, just to make sure the air doesn't get in and people have a place for their wet things-- if that's the case, the climate won't be such a shock.

Most importantly: it doesn't seem that way to a lot of U.S. people, especially the ones who don't go there very often, but Canada is a different country. It is actually very different and the small differences will be more jarring than the large. I have a significant other in Montreal and have been there more than a few times now, and I still get actual culture shock from tripping over tiny things. The plumbing is different. The way people lay out rooms is different. The way people think about cars is different. The money is pink and pocket change is really worth something. I love the experiences I have had of Canada very much, but if he goes to school there it will be going abroad and it will be a much larger adjustment than going to school in-country. This is not to say he should not do it; it could be very good for him. But if he's thinking it would be just like CU-Boulder only in a more interesting location to him, no, no, a thousand times no, it would not be. If he is really thinking of it as living in another culture for four years, and picking up another language, and learning more about the world in general, yeah, that could be an idea.

[boxofdelights]

Thank you. That gives us a lot to think about.

[hobbitbabe]

I have many friends who have gone to McGill despite not being able to communicate easily in French. I think some of them are even American, but I'm trying to remember who. The McGill students I know best tend to hang out with other students and in Anglophone environments (well, except for the linguist), and while their French might be a handicap in shopping, finding a dentist, or asking directions on the metro, it's not affecting how they make and keep friends. Whether that makes him miserable and lonely depends a lot on him.

But I agree with rushthatspeaks not to underestimate the potential challenges and culture shock of living in another country as a visa student. I moved from Ontario to Ohio for grad school at age 28, and it was harder than I expected - and mostly due to little things which would catch me unexpectedly.

U of T (main campus) and McGill are both good choices for a student who is confident of being able to find his or her way in a large university, with a very wide range of well-reputed programs of study. Both universities have lots of students who commute from across the city as well as some who live on the downtown campus, and both have lots of visa students. It will be somewhat easier to fly back and forth from Toronto, but the airport is a bit more trouble to get to. Montreal might have some direct flights to Denver or wherever, but it would be more common to fly to Toronto first. (Both airports have US immigration outposts in them.)

[boxofdelights]

It's strange to me, but he does want a large university. And he does long to be elsewhere, away from home.

I figure, anything he wants enough to work for it, I will support him in.

[owlectomy]

I am a McGill alum!

I LOVED McGill. It has the downsides of any enormous university (large lecture classes, more interaction with TAs than professors for the first couple years) but does a good job mitigating them. I had excellent professors for almost every class, including some who were close to the top of their fields.

Montreal is one of the coolest cities on the planet. (I say this as a person who now lives in Brooklyn -- and Montreal might be cooler than that!) For food, for music, for the level of ambient friendly weirdness -- it is my favorite city.

McGill is a predominantly English university and most of his classmates will be Anglophones (and some Francophones whose English is excellent, and quite a few students whose first language is something besides English or French.) It's a bit harder to get to know people than at an American university because there are so many commuter students -- there's not so much of the dorm/roommate culture.

Your son will probably want to learn as much French as he can manage in the next year if he wants to come to McGill -- for grocery shopping and ordering in restaurants and things like that, most people do speak English, but speaking even basic French is the difference between the students for whom McGill is a tiny safe outpost of Englishness and the students who get to really enjoy the whole city. (If you have the financial resources, a smartphone with a dictionary app is a fantastic thing to have.)

If he wants to get a job off-campus, then he will need to speak excellent French.

[hobbitbabe]

He won't be able to get a job off campus for at least a year and even if he does get a work permit, it will be limited.

[boxofdelights]

That's good to know, thank you!

Do you know
maribou over on the LJ side? She went to McGill too. You guys both post about books a lot.

[the_siobhan]

The huge majority of the population of Montreal speaks English, with the exception of some of the more blue-collar neighbourhoods (and that's mainly the older people) and the people who have recently moved there from elsewhere in the province. I've never had a problem being mono-lingual in Montreal.

Having said that, I have no idea what the University campus is like. My understanding is that McGill is the primarily English Uni in town. (Université du Québec and Université de Montréal being the French ones.) I can ask around and make sure that's correct.

Montreal itself is an amazing city. I love it. The only downside to living there is that the climate can be very extreme - it's a swamp in the summer and the snow can pile up to crazy levels in the winter.

As for Toronto, I love it here and the University is excellent. Again with the swamp-like summers, but the winters don't get to bad. Keep in mind that housing here is expensive as hell, Montreal is much cheaper.

[(Anonymous)]

The one problem I run into in Montreal, speaking very little French, is dealing with metro announcements: I'll be able to pick out that they are saying something about the orange line, but not whether they're telling me that there are delays, or the delays have now been resolved, or that there is no service on a specific chunk of the line.

[em_h]

Either McGill or University of Toronto would be good. Both are excellent universities (and yes, it's very affordable here compared to the U.S.).

I haven't lived in Montreal, but I know lots of people who have, and although being anglophone-only is a bit of a disadvantage, it is by no means a dealbreaker. It's a fantastic city. More European in feel than Toronto -- but on the other hand, much -- though by no means all -- of the cultural activity will be French (Quebec French, which, as noted above, is not France French), and so not as accessible, and he will sometimes encounter Francophones who have Attitude about Anglos.

I am biased about Toronto because I live here and I love it. It's a complicated city, but so are they all. It is culturally rich, extremely mixed ethnically and socially, and has large untamed ravines right in the middle of the city. The downtown campus is a bit confusing, but not too hard to navigate once you're used to it. And, well, my best friend is the Anglican chaplain for the university (and by no means does she see only Anglicans), so there's that indirect bit of personal support if necessary.

There will be some culture shock either way, though a bit less in Toronto. But you can easily get a sort of "Canada for beginners" briefing from those of us on here ...

[boxofdelights]

Heh, I just watched Picture Claire last night, which is not helping me to think of either Montreal or Toronto as safe places! But in truth my fears for him are much more about sleep deprivation and driving than violent crime.

I have never lived in a real city, which I would define as a city you don't need a car to get around in. I lived in Ann Arbor when I was in college, and didn't have a car or even a driver's license, but I lived in student neighborhoods and for most of it I lived with the guy who became my husband, who did have a car.

It is a comfort to be able to tell my backbrain, "See, I know people who live there, therefore it is possible for people to live there."

[em_h]

In fact, rather than in fiction, both are very safe -- Toronto, actually, even safer than Montreal, even though it is supposed to be our Big Bad City. I don't know that I've ever felt seriously unsafe here, and I've lived and worked in most of the dodgiest areas.

[lolaraincoat]

I am from the US but now live in Canada. I teach at a university in Toronto that is not the U of T. The U of T is a fabulous place for an undergraduate who is well prepared to navigate a very large university. Toronto is a great city - safe, friendly, fun, and amazingly diverse - but Montreal is where I would live in Canada if I had my choice, because it is gorgeous and cool (and also safe, friendly, fun and diverse.) The weather might be a tiny bit better in Toronto, but he'll need good boots and a good parka no matter what. Canadian French is a bit different from Parisian French, but it's mostly an accent difference. In a year of hard work he could pick up enough grammar and vocabulary that he would be fine in Montreal, where almost everyone has at least a little English (but people are far kinder to those who at least try to speak French, plus the eavesdropping is more fun.) Both cities have excellent, cheap public transportation and a lot going on. Do bear in mind that travel costs between the US and Canada are quite high.

[aedifica]

If he changes his mind about considering the University of Minnesota, I'd be happy to correspond with him about it (alum + worked there for six years).

A useful phrase for Montreal: "Bonjour-hi," if said by an Anglophone, means "Hi, I know this is a French-speaking area but my French isn't that great/is nonexistent, please forgive me"; if said by a Francophone, it means "Hi, this is really a French-speaking area you know, but I'm willing to speak English to you." Very very useful.