HELP! Waterloo vs Toronto

[rmp251]

I am a U of Waterloo BMath graduate (double honours applied math and computer science). I want to pursue a masters degree and I am having difficulty deciding between U of Toronto and U of Waterloo. My main motivation is to develop a career as a college professor (or university professor, although I'm not keen on getting a PhD) as I've been teaching math in college and would like to grow in that direction. However, if a masters can lead to a really interesting job at a great company (like Google for example) I want to be open to that as well. An added complication is that I am getting married in a few months and would like to be able to live with my wife in the GTA and not have a terrible commute (especially while being a student).

Location is one of the reasons I want to go to U of T, but also because it is a good school and would be a nice compliment to my degree from Waterloo. I hear U of T is a prestigious grad school. However, I have also heard that this is true of their PhD programs but not really the masters, and I have a strong pull to Waterloo for the masters because I have made some great connections and some professors are really interested in supervising me. They have also offered me significantly more funding than U of T, and I haven't established any connections with professors at U of T so I don't know how it will be.

I'm considering a coursework/project-based Msc in Mathematics at U of T versus the thesis-based MMath in Computer Science at UW. I want math to be the main focus of my degree but I'm really interested in applications to computer science. In Math at U of T, I would plan to take some grad courses in CS as well. My strengths lie in coursework and teaching, not in research - although I'm willing to work through a thesis if it gives my degree more credibility (as I have been told). My interests are very broad which is why I'd enjoy taking more courses than having to narrow my focus on a thesis topic, which I don't know what would be yet.

So many pros and cons both ways... Please help shed some light on which direction I should lean! Thanks everyone!

[Tony]

Sounds like Waterloo is a series of compromises in favour of more funding. Funding is certainly an important consideration, but I'm not sure if that's the right decision.

One of the concepts I've heard about, although it's told half-jokingly, is that of "academic inbreeding". There are certain advantages to broadening your experiences and pursuing grad studies at a different establishment than your undergrad.