My University Experience

When i was in my 3rd year of Btech, one of my professors had done his Phd from University of Saskatchewan. So he has mentioned this professor. At that time, i did not pay much heed to that, because i was preparing for US. So when i started facing some financial problems, another professor of mine who i did my internship with, he also suggested me to try here. And i thought, why not. So, this is how I came across to this university.

Study pressure, as such was not much. Because my masters degree was thesis based masters. In the first and second semester, i had to take- courses, that was the basic requirements. Course structure was very different from what we have in India.A bigger part of curriculum was based on group projects and assignments, rather than mid sem and end sem. It was more on the hands-on practical approach.

I was asked to submit my official transcript for Btech. They have very moderate requirements in US and Canada. I appeared for TOEFL, they required 90-100 out of 120. For Saskatchewan, no SOPs and LORs. I had a phone call with my professor, which was a kind of informal interview.

Over there we cannot know what package someone is getting. At the undergraduate level, we can get PPO, after the internship. Over there, we have to go to the industry and approach ourself. About the package, there is no such published data. It depends on city we are in. In Saskatchewan, if we manage to find a C$40k-50k per annum, its a decent job.

At the undergraduate level, it worked differently. Over there we have job fairs in North America. At the graduate level, it depends on supervisor. I did not get to do an internship, because my research work occupied me all the time.

The tuition fees actually vary every year. They are revised annually. When i joined, I was getting a fellowship of C$ 17,400 which was non-taxable. Out of that, I think my room rent and my groceries they accounted for roughly C$9000 . So, the remaining C$8000 something, that was the tuition fee for the entire year. So we used to pay it by semester. The round figure was close to C$8000, now it might have increased.

We had loads of undergraduate students. I think we had roughly 12-15 professors in my department. At the graduate level, in my research group itself, there were 50 people roughly. Very rough idea is 5:1 ratio at graduate level. The teaching pattern is quite different from what we have here. A bigger part of curriculum was focused on how well we do in the group project.

University of Saskatchewan has a very beautiful building, may be one of the best in Canada, in terms of how it looks. It had a huge gymnasium, library was also pretty big. There were different sections in the library. It had a big park kind of thing in the centre of university, we can study from there as well. Particularly about my research lab, we had quite a few equipment. My supervisor had a very well established lab. Our lab was fully functional, self-sufficient i would say. Facilities were quite good.

Friend circle is pretty good. In Canada there are many indians here. I do part time job in Cineplex. The university provides its own accommodation, but its too expensive. Whatever I am paying right now by staying in apartment, shopping my own groceries, I have experienced there is a difference of 500-800 CAD per month. There are many independent houses, hostels that they provide.