Colleges vs. Universities

Well, what I'm going to write about concerns Waterloo and MIT specifically. I don't really know anything about other Canadian or American universities, so take this sentence as a disclaimer, if you will. I still think this makes for a pretty good comparison, as I've heard many people say that MIT and Waterloo have the same atmosphere, similar student culture and so on. At a glance, I did think they were pretty similar, but now I'm not so sure anymore.

1. The student body: Students at MIT are intelligent. I mean, they have to write SATs, and get good grades in high school, and win some contests and so on, so everyone knows that they're intelligent. If you walk into a graduate level math classes, typically about half of the students are undergraduates. However, with all due respect, I didn't find them any different from the Waterloo undergraduates. Maybe that's because I was in pure math in Waterloo, which is a very small sample, chosen by self-selection. But in any case, I don't feel that I'm in a class full of geniuses or anything - I feel like I'm in a class just like the one in Waterloo. Otherwise, the students are just as friendly, and perhaps just as eccentric as the students in Waterloo. To give Waterloo some more credit, I am yet to witness a no pants day here at MIT.


2. The faculty: Okay. They're famous. I've seen Sipser, Munkres, Harris (from Harvard), Stanley (I own books written by them), and other mathematical legends. I've even talked to a Fields medalist, even though I didn't know he was one at the time. There are so many other famous people visiting at any given week that I feel pretty overwhelmed and insignificant at times, but it's a really cool experience too. In terms of classes, this can be both good and bad. It's good because they have so much insight, and often they will digress into their research or some interesting open problem, and there are more opportunities here to attend seminars and get a feel for what the current research is like. But I found at first that I was so intimidated by their fame that I was afraid to ask questions. And most others felt this way as well. This could be good or bad, I guess, depending on your learning style.

3. The faculty-student interaction: Waterloo definitely has more of it. Nothing like pints with profs here. Hanging out with the professors here is a very, very rare occasion. I'm told that Waterloo is exceptional on this front though - maybe I'm just very spoiled by the professors there knowing everyone's name, drinking with them, and so on :P It's not a common occurrence, as far as I can tell - so people at Waterloo, take advantage of it while you can! Seriously, the department is awesome, and you won't find one like it elsewhere!

4. The facilities & the funding: This is where Waterloo really can't compare to MIT. MIT is a private institution, which means it has a lot more money to spend on everything. If you go to a free food event at MIT, very rarely will you find anything like campus pizza. It's usually Indian, Thai or Mediterranean food. I heard a rumour that salmon once made an appearance to some event. They also have tea every day in the department, with a lot more cookies than Waterloo - and we only have tea once a week! They also have a sailing pavilion (free access to MIT students), a rowing team, two olympic-sized pools (not yet confirmed - I only saw one) and who knows what else. Coming from a government-funded institution, albeit a really good one (and we all know the math department is rich and powerful), it amazes me every time.

5. Overall: If I were to choose where to do my undergraduate degree again, between MIT and Waterloo, I'd go to Waterloo. Sure, MIT has more famous people, but to be honest, I think Waterloo's faculty is amazing. Not only are they good mathematicians, you can really tell that they care about you as a person, and I think that kind of guidance is more important than learning an extra bit of math in undergrad. They're less intimidating, and they can teach all the undergraduate courses as well as the faculty at MIT - to be honest, undergraduate math isn't that hard (at least if you're a professor, they're not). I've met people in Ivy league schools whose advisors didn't even know their names - and they were supposed to supervise their thesis! Yes, Waterloo is poor, but we also pay about 1/10 of the tuition people here pay.

I haven't yet made up my mind about where to do the PhD. So far I'm enjoying it here, though.