University of British Columbia

[squidd]

greetings sirs and madams.

have any of you heard of the University of British Columbia in Vancouver? is it a good school?

many thanks!

 

[barron of ideas]

It is in Canada. Of course it is a good school. Vancouver is a great city and the university is right there. I would compare it to NYU. With ice skating.

 

[Richard III]

I'm a native of Victoria and an alumnus of UVic, about 80k across the Straits of Georgia, and know UBC well. It IS a good school in most faculties and superb in a few.

- If you're American, fees will be cheaper (canadian tuition is heavily subsidised, plus exchange rates add to purchasing power of US dollar)
- Campus is incredible, used for two major international summits in recent years, and parts of it are just off the water and most is treed with conifer - as everything is in BC
- City is also amazing, 1.5 million nestled against the coast with mountains or water on all sides, dozens of leisure activites within a short drive (e.g. world class skiing and boarding everywhere, especially Whistler, boating, mountain climbing, ok nightlife, etc), and asian culture is quite rich in Vancouver
- I should warn you though that while Vancouver is warmer than most Canadian cities (e.g. Seattle climate), it is also wetter than all of them because of where it sits on the Straits; described by David Duchovny of the X-files as "a tropical rainforest without the tropics."
- With the above in mind, the culture is a bit "left coast," lots of sandals and goretex, casual dress predominates, lots of environmentalism and a typical B.C. student party will have about 20-60% of its kids smoking weed at it (the stuff practically grows wild there). "Wreck Beach," which is technically part of the campus, is a nude beach (hidden from the rest of the city by a cliff, thankfully). If that kind of culture is not at least tolerable for you, I'd knock UBC down several notches in your options.

Take a look at UVic as well, although the city is quieter and much smaller (but also dryer). DON'T look at Simon Fraser, which is a smaller U in the west side of Vancouver (in a suburb called Burnaby). But definitely on UBC, in some faculties, it's rep in the pacific rim and worldwide is quite good.

What faculty you looking at, squidd?

 

[squidd]

thank you sirs.

sadly, i am not american. ia ma filipino. yes, you are correct, the fees are heavily subsidized. sadly, i will need to swallow the 20K canadian for the two-year program on masters of journalism. plus probably another 10K in living expenses on campus. sad. really sad considering the philippine peso is trading at more than P50 to the US dollar and more than 32 vs. the canadian dollar.

the campus looks really great on the web. nice to know that it looks as great in real life.

climate should not be a problem. there was a string of days that we here in manila were doing something in the range of high-80s to mid-90s F. and man, you should see our tropical storms. talk about dripping wet.

ah. weed. never tried it. then again, i could be lying. suffice to say, this doesn't knock UBC down any notchesas far as my options are concerned...

if i may be allowed to further bother you for information mr. richard, are there any other prestigious universities in vancouver that are offering a masters in journalism program?

my advance thanks.

 

[Immortal]

why not SF rich? I was planning to go there at first, Im not anymore, but I had planned on it.

[asian culture is quite rich in Vancouver

YOU GOT THAT RIGHT

 

[Sayounara]

yaya.. Vancouver the most beautiful city in the world

 

[History_Buff]

I've been to Vancouver on a couple trips, really nice place, but too wet for this prairie boy. Sayounara can probably relate.

My dad went to UBC, hes got a pretty good job now. And its really close to some nice places, including good open space on Vancouver Island, (Which I figure cant be too common in the Phillipenes.) all the comforts of a western city, a heavily asian influence, and skiing 1-2 hours away.

If you do come, I defineatly recomment trying skiiing or snowboarding if you havent yet. Amazing experience.

 

[Richard III]

Originally posted by Immortal
why not SF rich? I was planning to go there at first, Im not anymore, but I had planned on it.

YOU GOT THAT RIGHT

Simon Fraser has three or four decent faculties but the rest is crap. And the location sucks; if you're going to move to Vancouver, you might as well move to Vancouver. Burnaby? I mean, hey, come on!

What's up with the all-caps? You got a problem with asian culture?

 

[Immortal]

I forgot the smilie, so sue me.

Personally I wouldnt go near vancouver, not my kind of town. Too wet.

 

[squidd]

thank you for all the information.

if i may further ask... i am not too familiar with some of the abbreviations. UVic i assume would mean the university of victoria... what is SF rich?

for mr. history buff -- actually you will qfind quite a lot of open spaces in the philippines. sadly, most of them unsightly. its a price we pay for a runaway population growth rate which is cramming 80 million plus of us into an archipelago of about 30,000 hectares.

 

[Richard III]

Originally posted by squidd
if i may be allowed to further bother you for information mr. richard, are there any other prestigious universities in vancouver that are offering a masters in journalism program?

my advance thanks.

Yeah, had a good friend in high school and early U who was from Manila; rich family, but the exchange still burned him in the end.

After bashing them for a minute there, I must admit that I think SFU now has an MJ program from its communications dept.

As far as I know, UBC's MJ program is relatively new, and typically of BC universities, it takes the tack that a faculty should specialize and do well at the specialties and let the generalities suffer, which is good as far as I'm concerned, but I'm biased And in BC, specialization almost always means specializing in "natural" specialties, e.g. ones that makes sense for the region and geography, so I'd be stunned if pacific rim issues and journalism trends were not a fixation of the department.

Frankly, the only other MJ program in the country that is even vaguely stable that I know of is at Carleton in Ottawa; one of my closest friends got her MJ from them. But you don't want to go to Ottawa, trust me. Their program is also much more theoretical than UBC's is likely to be, and likely to be less relevant unless you plan to be a full-time CBC reporter or some such similar atrocity. UWO's used to be good but it got gutted and is fighting to recover.

As for the weed, no need to try it, but if you were some sort of god-fearing yankee redneck who wanted to arrest everyone using it, you'd have a real problem; it's literally more common to find a "smoker" than a heavy drinker in those parts so the easily offended would be, well, often offended.

R.III

 

[Immortal]

University of Simon Frasier is SF, sorry about that.

 

[naervod]

I'm not a native of the area and don't know much about the universities there, but I visited Victoria a few weeks ago and have been to Vancouver on a couple of occasions. Nice climate there (being a Marin County native I'm used to/love rain) and lots of stuff to do when you're not partying, studying, or on CFC.

 

[Richard III]

Yeah:

SFU - Simon Fraser University, Vancouver's other major university, main campus in Burnaby
UBC- University of British Columbia, obviously, in western (but not West) Vancouver
UNBC - University of Northern British Columbia, don't go unless forced at gunpoint, it's just too new and too isolated
UVic - University of Victoria but no journalism program to speak of; better for pure arts, most of the (fine) journalists I know who came from there have degrees from the Creative Writing School
BCIT - British Columbia Institute of Technology (also in Greater Vancouver, also, oddly, based in Burnaby), for geeks

Clearly, we aren't the sort of province to be giving interesting names to our universities

The BC higher ed system is organized to absorb most of the domestic intake into shorter programs in community colleges that are degree-granting and offer easy transfer (too easy, dammit) into the universities.

This is unlike, say, Manitoba; in BC the universities are intended to be relatively elite institutions, and thus smaller than you'd expect for their reputation (although UBC is quite large compared to the others). So, other than the five I listed above, the rest of our PSE institutions like Kwantlen or Camosun or Malaspina are all really colleges and not worth the attention of a foreign student, frankly. Since I left in the 90s, the system shifted slightly to create several "university colleges" - e.g. University College of the Fraser Valley, intended to absorb the growing degree-granting four year demand while still keeping the main universities relatively intact.

The biggest exception: Trinity Western University is a smaller religious college in Langley.

Re: my specialization comment, SFU's big specialty, incidentally, is criminology, for which they are nationally renowned. But get a history degree from there, and, uh, you sort of smell funny.

And in BC, professors teach; the cult of getting the teaching right hit there long ago and it has paid off in spades. I'm a vicious critic of the Canadian university system, but if anyone is doing it right, BC is (with SW Ontario a close second).

R.III

 

[muppet]

Take RIII's warning about rain seriously. Just think of Vancouver as the city built by chopping down a rainforest. It's the rainforest without the forest.

Be careful about the crowds you run in - learn to say "no". Myself, I couldn't stand the weed smoking social circles in school.

Wreck Beach is OK. I met a girl in campus once that literally dragged me onto Wreck Beach. Actually, it was her and her (female) roommate that kidnapped me and force-stripped me. It didn't feel so bad after they stripped too... Other than looking pretty, the campus can also be alot of fun.

Ah, I was playing a game of chess with some buddies at UBC once. I girl I knew from math classes dropped by and watched for a while. We finished playing, and it looked like it might rain soon, so I offered her a ride home. About half way to her place she asked, "Can I trade you sexual favours for chess lessons?" We never did get to the chess lessons... Vancouver women can be pretty creative, and indrectly, direct.

Keep your wits about!

AFAIK, UBC is the ONLY western Canadian university that offers an MA in Journalism. Made possible through a generous donation by a Chinese newspaper. SFU offers an MA in Communications to best of my knowledge.

Good luck in your studies!

 

[squidd]

veeeerrrryyyyy interesting mr. muppet.

you're right about saying no. i was an athlete once so my body is not too akin to regulated substances... excpet beer. besides, i am old. old enough i guess.

i do play chess and look forward to forced-stripping. though coming from a man, i will tend to doubt the "forced" part.

the college of journalism is sing tao. i always thought it was a beer (and a damn good beer at that. lemme tell you, we filipinos make one of the best beers in the world -- san miguel pale pilsen) and not a paper.

thanks again to all the sirs and madams for the information.

 

[col]

I have friends in BC too. If any of the colleges there have a vacancy for a Physics / Computing / Civ teacher, let me know!

 

[squidd]

Originally posted by col
I have friends in BC too. If any of the colleges there have a vacancy for a Physics / Computing / Civ teacher, let me know!

civ teacher? you mean history and those subjects under the social studies branch?

don't tell me you want to make a living teaching civilization (as in sid meier civ) because if there was, i'd post it here and there's going to be real tough competition for the position.

 

[col]

Being a good player aint the same as being a good teacher There are some great civ teachers in the SG forum though.

Mm - just speculating now , it would be fun to put a course together. Basic introductory concepts through to advanced ideas. Assignments and position analysis to set. Chess was a compulsory subject for a while in the Soviet Union to teach thinking skills. Why not Civ? It could make a great course.

 

[squidd]

Originally posted by col
Being a good player aint the same as being a good teacher There are some great civ teachers in the SG forum though.

Mm - just speculating now , it would be fun to put a course together. Basic introductory concepts through to advanced ideas. Assignments and position analysis to set. Chess was a compulsory subject for a while in the Soviet Union to teach thinking skills. Why not Civ? It could make a great course.

ok mr col. due to your superb suggestion, i will start a new thread on how to earn a degree on civ. but the problem is i don't know if it is going to be a bachelor of arts or bachelor of science course.