CE in Montreal. Good courses?

[wolvefly]

Bonjour tous le monde!

I am interested in Computer Engineering, so I've been looking for a university for some time now. I was mostly looking for a french school since it's my first language, but I think would be able to handle an English school (McGill or Concordia). My problem here would be to choose which one of the two I should attend. I heard McGill has a theoretical approach while Concordia is more practical. I prefer the latter. However, I am not sure if the courses given at Concordia would fit my interests.

- General programming
- AI programming
- Interests in robotics
- How the computer works (to enhance my programming skills)
- How to design, build and program my own stuff(hardware and software)

My question is, would the courses given at McGill and Concordia fit my interests? Will these courses cover the core skills of a good computer engineer? I will give you the link to Concordia's website since I am most intrigued by that school. McGill's website is funky...I couldn't find the courses.

Concordia - http://www.concordia.ca/info/futurestudents/undergraduate/programs/subjects/BEng_Computer.php

McGill - No link. Would help me if you looked for me.

Thank you all!

Nicolas

[jbking]

Bienvenue

Here's a McGill link:
http://www.mcgill.ca/ece/undergrad/information/ce/

They have links based on starting year that may be helpful if you want to see where the program was before.

Don't forget to also look at what research may be going on in each school as if you plan on going on to do your Master's, it may be good to stick to the same school.

Another facet to consider is how well do the schools do in the annual Maclean's rankings that should be coming out soon for the next year given that last year's was dated November 8, 2007. Concordia scored the bottom of Comprehensive schools while McGill was tops in the Medical schools looking at the rankings from 2007.

Je sais un peu de francais.

[wolvefly]

jbking @ Wed Nov 05, 2008 8:08 pm wrote:

Bienvenue

Here's a McGill link:
http://www.mcgill.ca/ece/undergrad/information/ce/

They have links based on starting year that may be helpful if you want to see where the program was before.

Don't forget to also look at what research may be going on in each school as if you plan on going on to do your Master's, it may be good to stick to the same school.

Another facet to consider is how well do the schools do in the annual Maclean's rankings that should be coming out soon for the next year given that last year's was dated November 8, 2007. Concordia scored the bottom of Comprehensive schools while McGill was tops in the Medical schools looking at the rankings from 2007.

Je sais un peu de francais.

Thanks for the links. But the Maclean's rankings aren't really help me. It doesn't seem to talk about engineering, or even computers for that matter. While I do think rankings can be meaningfull, I prefer basing my choice by the courses they offer. I see McGill seems to concentrate more on the electrical side of CE. I think I am still more interested by what Concordia has to offer. But I don't really know if they cover the core skills of a good computer engineer. McGill may be better in rankings, but I believe I am my own ranking .

I'll be looking at what research may be going on in each school as you recommended jbking.
I'm still looking for other opinions tho. Concordia's courses, will they fit my interests? Will they help me be an exellent computer engineer if I study hard?

PS. This time my girlfriend wasn't around to correct the errors in my post. Have fun reading this mess

[jbking]

McGill also has a Software Engineering program and an Electrical Engineering program, don't forget:
Software Eng.
Electrical Eng.

Concordia does as well as though, but I would suggest taking a little look at software engineering as it may cover most of your interests to some extent that shouldn't be overlooked. There is also quite a bit of overlap in these programs to some extent, though I would note a couple of big points:

1) The subject covered can be quite broad in the first couple of years which is designed to give students a well-rounded background to some extent so some of the more fun courses like Artificial Intelligence or real-time operating systems which may involve robotics, a similar course at Waterloo had a robotic arm or a train set as the two options for a real-time OS.

2) What you learn in school is more of a foundation than something you'll directly take and apply, would be my guess. For example, the work I do in Web Development wasn't ever taught when I was in university, which was 1993-1997, though in my last year there were some folks that tried to get a professor to allow them to write a Java compiler, though I didn't take that course.

The Maclean's survey is in many ways a more general look at a school to consider things like class size, e.g. will you be in a room with 200 other studtents at once or just 30, library facilities and other factors that if you didn't know about the rankings, it may be useful. Course when I was in school it was just starting so maybe I remember it better for that.