一年以来对麦吉尔硕士项目的了解, 长文章!!! McGill, master, Montreal
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I’m in the master program of mechanical engineering of McGill University which is among the top in Canada. You might also be interested in this program. It is my pleasure to give you some insight about it.
=============================== academics
Q: how do you recommend McGill
Usually, Canadian Universities provide thesis master students with scholarship covering tuition fee. (You also get plenty opportunities to take TA-ship and RA-ship which is $15/hour.) And you are free to choose wether to go to work, or to go to a PhD program in top universities in the US, after the two-year master program.
In each year, 40 to 50 master students are admitted to my program. Half of them are thesis based.
Q: what is the difference between thesis (master) program and non-thesis (master) program.
The major difference is that the thesis students obtain 16 credits from classes and 28 credits from writing the thesis. The thesis topic is chosen by the supervisors.The non thesis students take nine courses and do a design project of 12 credits. In each year, there are around 5 non-thesis students transfer to thesis program in the their second semester.
Q: major in the mcgill.ca?
It is a full time program of 18 months. Students in this program take courses in the Concordia, McGill, University of Montreal etc. Then many of them are recruited by the aerospace employers in Montreal including Bombardier, Pratt&Whitney, Bell helicopter, CAE etc. My supervisor Mathias Legrand is the one of the administrative of this program. One of my lab member is in this program. He is an employee of PWC at the same time.
Q: Do you recommend the computer science program?
All are admitted as thesis students. They have one semester to choose carefully and show off fully to professors before they make final decision which research topic to do. However, it is still possible that some of these students cannot find any supervisor and they have to take extra courses to satisfy the program demand.
Q: what about other majors?
The medicine school of McGill ranks first in Canada. Though the medical school give few graduate admission to international students, it still attracts many Chinese to study for an undergrad major in bio-science as the prerequisite.
The most welcomed master program by Chinese students is the education which is the only choice for Chinese students who was majored in Language in China.
The most of international students come from the US. French students also contribute a great part. The number of Indian and Spanish students are comparatively small.
Q: the relationship between students and their supervisors?
In one word, your supervisor pay you to do some topic that he/she is interested. In the mean time, you get professional research training from an experienced professor.
McGill is famous for doing research which makes McGill graduates highly welcomed by graduate schools in the US. Research is a only focus of a thesis program.
It is very important to discuss with your supervisor about your research topic before accepting the offer. It is important to make sure that your goal matches that of your supervisor. There are several stories that PhD students in McGill quit their program when they do not like the research topic or when they cannot communicate well with their supervisors.
Q: Would you give any unofficial introduction about professors in mechanical engineering?
There are two Chinese professors mcgill.ca and mcgill.ca. They recruit many Chinese students. They have good relationships with the industry.
mcgill.ca teaches the robotics class. His research focus on the mechanical design.
Q: How do you survive classes?
There are on average 30 students in a graduate class. Therefore, it is very easy to get help from the instructor, rather than TA. It is also easier to redesign a graduate classes since a small class allows the instructor to incorporate their newest research results. There are typically 200 students in an undergrad class.
It is free to register in classes of all departments for graduate students in McGill. Therefore, I took the cs.mcgill.ca class which is the most welcomed in Chinese engineering students here. There were 20 Chinese students in this class.
There are nearly 200 students in the cim.mcgill.ca class. It might because of the mushrooming smartphone and video game industry. Graduate students are also recommended to take mathematics courses.
Q: How about English?
My main worry is not my accent. It is that I don’t know how to speak natively. It took me two semesters to read textbooks and to do projects with English speaking students before I speak fluently.
It is really misleading to read TOEFL words dictionaries. Most of the translations are wrong. You’d better read English news and read English textbooks. Then you know what to discuss with others.
Q: How do you spend one week?
If there is coursework, one week goes quite quick. You go to classes, do homework’s, do course projects with team members, and try to survive the finals.
If there is no classes. You have time to do researches: read paper, do experiments, discuss with your supervisor and make presentations to the lab members. And go to the Friday parties.
You usually have two weeks of paid holidays which allows you to travel to China or the US to meet friends.
Q: It is good to know the wishes of different groups.
For the undergrads who have competitiveness, the major concern is still study. For most of them, especially for those in science and art, go to grad schools are more proper.
For the masters, most of them is to do research. In the same time, go to find a job.
For the PhD students, their major concern is to make progress of their research, publish papers and gain abilities like teaching to go to academics.
For the postdocs and visiting scholars, who also take a big part in McGill’s population. Their expectations are to achieve higher academic rewards which serves for their promotions in China.
Q: Is it easy to find a job after this program?
There are three Chinese masters in mechanical the last year. One went to the Microsoft. One went to the Tru-Simulation. Both have internship experience before graduating. The third one is learning French which allows her to immigrate to Quebec. It is easier to find a job herein with a permanent resident status.
There are fewer positions for mechanical engineering students in Canada than in the US. But you can still go to the General Motor, Imperial Oil, Bombardier, General Electric etc.
Finding a job is the most comprehensive topic. No template for you. But one trend is that learning coding is a must. For thesis based master, you typically go to five classes from September to April, and write the thesis from Sept to April of the second academic year. The only windows for you to go to intern is the summer of the first academic year. You’d better start seeking for positions in January. There are on-campus recruitments in September. Remember to show off yourselves as to get interviewed.
========================== living
Q: How does Montreal look like?
Beautiful, I mean, people here. Many of them are descendants of the French. People in Montreal emphasize on sports mostly. They go boating in summer and go ski in winter. Ice hockey is the national winter sport of Canada. It is as important as the football in the US. In summer, the untamed natural scenery is also breathtaking, for you who are bored of the city lives in Beijing.
Q: Does Montreal snow for 5 months?
Yes, unfortunately. But Locating in the downtown area McGill is just next to an underground city. there are sport facilities, theatre, museums and everything around McGill. In the short summer, the centre of the city becomes a big playground where the international parties like the anime exhibition, movie festival etc. never end. In fact, Montreal is the few cities in the US where you don’t have to live on wheels.
Q: How is the living in Montreal?
Montreal is among the most affordable city in the North America. The living expense is approximately $500/month which is a half of the cost in Toronto and a quarter of the cost in New York City.
There are many other Universities in Montreal: Concordia, who accept many Chinese applicants, and the University of Montreal, a French University. The rich culture the convenient life make Montreal the top city in the North America to study!
Q: What cannot you miss in Montreal?
Friend! Even if you only expect to study in McGill, you’ll anyhow reward with a great number of friends. Though Montreal has the least Chinese students in the North America, there are interesting students from almost everywhere in the world like Vietnam, Iran and Saudi Arabia. People here are friendly and caring. Three quarters of students are from Quebec. It means you always got friends to hang out when you come back to Montreal. So, no matter how busy you are, don’t forget to go to the Friday parties downtown and chat with your friends. They need you!
========================== afterwords
BTW, the deadline of applying for the master of mechanical engineering in McGill is Jan 15, the deadline of applying for the master of computer science is March 1.
I thank you in advance if you’d like to help me translate this article into Chinese and share it with your friends.
Preview
Preview
Preview
=============================== academics
Q: how do you recommend McGill
Usually, Canadian Universities provide thesis master students with scholarship covering tuition fee. (You also get plenty opportunities to take TA-ship and RA-ship which is $15/hour.) And you are free to choose wether to go to work, or to go to a PhD program in top universities in the US, after the two-year master program.
In each year, 40 to 50 master students are admitted to my program. Half of them are thesis based.
Q: what is the difference between thesis (master) program and non-thesis (master) program.
The major difference is that the thesis students obtain 16 credits from classes and 28 credits from writing the thesis. The thesis topic is chosen by the supervisors.The non thesis students take nine courses and do a design project of 12 credits. In each year, there are around 5 non-thesis students transfer to thesis program in the their second semester.
Q: major in the mcgill.ca?
It is a full time program of 18 months. Students in this program take courses in the Concordia, McGill, University of Montreal etc. Then many of them are recruited by the aerospace employers in Montreal including Bombardier, Pratt&Whitney, Bell helicopter, CAE etc. My supervisor Mathias Legrand is the one of the administrative of this program. One of my lab member is in this program. He is an employee of PWC at the same time.
Q: Do you recommend the computer science program?
All are admitted as thesis students. They have one semester to choose carefully and show off fully to professors before they make final decision which research topic to do. However, it is still possible that some of these students cannot find any supervisor and they have to take extra courses to satisfy the program demand.
Q: what about other majors?
The medicine school of McGill ranks first in Canada. Though the medical school give few graduate admission to international students, it still attracts many Chinese to study for an undergrad major in bio-science as the prerequisite.
The most welcomed master program by Chinese students is the education which is the only choice for Chinese students who was majored in Language in China.
The most of international students come from the US. French students also contribute a great part. The number of Indian and Spanish students are comparatively small.
Q: the relationship between students and their supervisors?
In one word, your supervisor pay you to do some topic that he/she is interested. In the mean time, you get professional research training from an experienced professor.
McGill is famous for doing research which makes McGill graduates highly welcomed by graduate schools in the US. Research is a only focus of a thesis program.
It is very important to discuss with your supervisor about your research topic before accepting the offer. It is important to make sure that your goal matches that of your supervisor. There are several stories that PhD students in McGill quit their program when they do not like the research topic or when they cannot communicate well with their supervisors.
Q: Would you give any unofficial introduction about professors in mechanical engineering?
There are two Chinese professors mcgill.ca and mcgill.ca. They recruit many Chinese students. They have good relationships with the industry.
mcgill.ca teaches the robotics class. His research focus on the mechanical design.
Q: How do you survive classes?
There are on average 30 students in a graduate class. Therefore, it is very easy to get help from the instructor, rather than TA. It is also easier to redesign a graduate classes since a small class allows the instructor to incorporate their newest research results. There are typically 200 students in an undergrad class.
It is free to register in classes of all departments for graduate students in McGill. Therefore, I took the cs.mcgill.ca class which is the most welcomed in Chinese engineering students here. There were 20 Chinese students in this class.
There are nearly 200 students in the cim.mcgill.ca class. It might because of the mushrooming smartphone and video game industry. Graduate students are also recommended to take mathematics courses.
Q: How about English?
My main worry is not my accent. It is that I don’t know how to speak natively. It took me two semesters to read textbooks and to do projects with English speaking students before I speak fluently.
It is really misleading to read TOEFL words dictionaries. Most of the translations are wrong. You’d better read English news and read English textbooks. Then you know what to discuss with others.
Q: How do you spend one week?
If there is coursework, one week goes quite quick. You go to classes, do homework’s, do course projects with team members, and try to survive the finals.
If there is no classes. You have time to do researches: read paper, do experiments, discuss with your supervisor and make presentations to the lab members. And go to the Friday parties.
You usually have two weeks of paid holidays which allows you to travel to China or the US to meet friends.
Q: It is good to know the wishes of different groups.
For the undergrads who have competitiveness, the major concern is still study. For most of them, especially for those in science and art, go to grad schools are more proper.
For the masters, most of them is to do research. In the same time, go to find a job.
For the PhD students, their major concern is to make progress of their research, publish papers and gain abilities like teaching to go to academics.
For the postdocs and visiting scholars, who also take a big part in McGill’s population. Their expectations are to achieve higher academic rewards which serves for their promotions in China.
Q: Is it easy to find a job after this program?
There are three Chinese masters in mechanical the last year. One went to the Microsoft. One went to the Tru-Simulation. Both have internship experience before graduating. The third one is learning French which allows her to immigrate to Quebec. It is easier to find a job herein with a permanent resident status.
There are fewer positions for mechanical engineering students in Canada than in the US. But you can still go to the General Motor, Imperial Oil, Bombardier, General Electric etc.
Finding a job is the most comprehensive topic. No template for you. But one trend is that learning coding is a must. For thesis based master, you typically go to five classes from September to April, and write the thesis from Sept to April of the second academic year. The only windows for you to go to intern is the summer of the first academic year. You’d better start seeking for positions in January. There are on-campus recruitments in September. Remember to show off yourselves as to get interviewed.
========================== living
Q: How does Montreal look like?
Beautiful, I mean, people here. Many of them are descendants of the French. People in Montreal emphasize on sports mostly. They go boating in summer and go ski in winter. Ice hockey is the national winter sport of Canada. It is as important as the football in the US. In summer, the untamed natural scenery is also breathtaking, for you who are bored of the city lives in Beijing.
Q: Does Montreal snow for 5 months?
Yes, unfortunately. But Locating in the downtown area McGill is just next to an underground city. there are sport facilities, theatre, museums and everything around McGill. In the short summer, the centre of the city becomes a big playground where the international parties like the anime exhibition, movie festival etc. never end. In fact, Montreal is the few cities in the US where you don’t have to live on wheels.
Q: How is the living in Montreal?
Montreal is among the most affordable city in the North America. The living expense is approximately $500/month which is a half of the cost in Toronto and a quarter of the cost in New York City.
There are many other Universities in Montreal: Concordia, who accept many Chinese applicants, and the University of Montreal, a French University. The rich culture the convenient life make Montreal the top city in the North America to study!
Q: What cannot you miss in Montreal?
Friend! Even if you only expect to study in McGill, you’ll anyhow reward with a great number of friends. Though Montreal has the least Chinese students in the North America, there are interesting students from almost everywhere in the world like Vietnam, Iran and Saudi Arabia. People here are friendly and caring. Three quarters of students are from Quebec. It means you always got friends to hang out when you come back to Montreal. So, no matter how busy you are, don’t forget to go to the Friday parties downtown and chat with your friends. They need you!
========================== afterwords
BTW, the deadline of applying for the master of mechanical engineering in McGill is Jan 15, the deadline of applying for the master of computer science is March 1.
I thank you in advance if you’d like to help me translate this article into Chinese and share it with your friends.
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