UofT Mississauga and Downtown; Differences

[Guest ipmat]

I have a quick question about U of T. As you know they have 3 campuses, one in downtown, one in Mississauga, and one in scarborough. What is the difference between these campuses? Is one better than the other? I would mainly like to know the differences between the Mississauga and the Downtown campus. I'd really appreciate it if somone could help me here. I have applied for Life Sciences at both campusues.

[Guest 15Sacha]

Hi ipmat,

 

You should go the campus that is closer to you and/or has a wide variety of courses that suit your needs. No campus is better and in the end result is the same; you graduate from the University of Toronto.

 

However, the St. George campus has soooo many interesting courses to choose from, but it really depends on you. I suggest looking at the course calendars for each campus (they have it online).

Scarborough campus doesn't have much selection for life sciences, but hopefully a mississauga person can elaborate on erindale.

 

Good Luck:)

[Guest Kirsteen]

Hi there,

 

Another thing that you might wish to consider when selecting a campus is that, although you may not be registered at the St. George campus, your home campus, e.g., Erindale, may allow you to take a certain proportion of St. George courses per year. I did this for the one year that I was registered at Scarborough. Plus, i believe I've seen a shuttle that transports students to and from Erindale to King's College Circle--the heart of the St. George campus.

 

Cheers,

Kirsteen

[Guest arjuna83]

Hi,

 

I just completed my second year of undergrad at UofT Mississauga. Erindale is a beautiful campus, with small classroom sizes (the biggest lecture hall has 350 seats; for first year science students), many different opportunities for student involvement, and environmentally friendly

 

The smaller number of students enable us to interact more easily with professors, and helps in creating that feeling of belonging to the campus. It's also a lot easier to get to know your fellow students.

 

There are so many different ways in which students can get involved with activities on campus. There are many opportunities to develop leadership skills, and the fewer number of students helps students use campus resources more conveniently (for example, you can go to the gym anytime and not need to worry about it being full etc.).

 

Finally, Erindale emphasizes environment friendliness heavily. All the buildings have been placed around green areas, and the buildings which are being constructed will be built in harmony with the environment.

 

However, there are some negative aspects as well. UTM cannot even compare to the Downtown campus in terms of diversity of courses being offered. Also, having completed a couple of summer courses at Downtown, I got the feeling that Downtown has a more "university" atmosphere to it, with it's imposing buildings and magnificent architecture.

[Guest Steve U of T]

Erindale campus actually has a more diverse selection of courses in certain specific fields, although life sciences is not one of them. If you're interested in anthropology, I think you might have more options in Mississauga.

 

Some of my classmates (at St. George campus) have been Erindale students. You are allowed to do a number of courses downtown, and I'm told the shuttle bus is fairly convenient.

 

I honestly believe there is no difference between a class of 350 (or 50, for that matter) and a class of 2000 students. The only reasonable comparison of class sizes is the number of courses with about 30 students or less. I wouldn't know what Erindale offers, but St. George offers a lot of these at the 4th year level, although very few at the 3rd year level, and almost none (in the life sciences) in the first two years. If there are lots of classes of 30 or less students throughout all 4 years at Erindale, it's probably a better learning environment, but if "small classroom sizes" means 100 students, I don't think it makes a difference. Of course, that's just my opinion.

[Guest dr deelish]

When choosing a campus for undergraduate studies, I ended up going to UTM because of the proximity to home. Many people that go to UTM do it for proximity purposes if you are looking to go through a general life sciences program. However, there are also many very interesting programs at UTM that are not offered at St. George .. mainly forensics (which I've just completed) and CCIT (communications, culture information technology). FSC239Y - introduction to forensic science is an incredibly popular course, and in order to stand a chance of getting into it, you best be a UTM student (as the class fills up instantaneously). Also, the department of biomedical communications is starting 10 new undergraduate half-courses at UTM - this is exclusive to this campus!! 4 will go under CCIT, the other 6 will be split between anthropology, forensics, and biology. Extremely interesting if you are so inclined.

 

As Arjuna stated, the small campus makes everyone feel "like home", but again, if you want the big-city university atmosphere, you're better off at st.george. As a UTM student, you can take classes at the downtown campus, so you can get your fix that way. Also, come September 2004, shuttle service between UTM and St. George is free for UTM students ... making this more convenient ..

 

UTM also has lots of cool wildlife like white-tailed deer, bats, vultures, hawks, and more ..

 

Happy choosing.