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Why NOT to go to Ottawa


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1) The Sens being terrible is actually a great reason to be here. You can go watch the Leafs and any other non-Edmonton team this year go beat up on them with a crowd that's nearly half Leaf fans at Scotiabank Place.

 

2) Prime Minister's house is a little more than 8 km by car haha. Bad for some, but if you like your odds of outrunning the RCMP... you can egg his house.

 

3) The winters are pretty frigid, especially if you're from the coasts. Mind you with Winterlude and skating on the canal, I've spent more time outdoors in my first Ottawa winter than any of my London winters. You just need a serious coat and boots. I'm sure anyone from UofA, Sask or Mantioba would laugh at what I thought was brutally cold.

 

4) As for an actual downside, it was brought up. IMO it would be nice to have a dedicated medical student lounge. As of now, we share a lounge will all the other programs that are in the building. It has microwaves and fridges and is fine as a functional lounge goes, but can be tough to find a spot to sit sometimes. The downside is mitigated by the fact that we typically don't have class past 12:30 4 of 5 days a week so we don't need a lounge most of the time, but between the one day we do have class in the afternoon and other various things that keep us around campus, it would be nice if we had a dedicated space like the grad students have and some of the other lounges that I've seen at other schools.

 

I've been pushing the list of positives about Ottawa, because I really do believe it's a great program and city that a lot of people aren't as aware of. There were a tonne of great things I didn't learn until after showing up here. You will get a great education no matter where you go in Canada, however, every program has it's weaknesses some of which can be greater depending on how they match up to your personality. It's a good question to ask students of the school especially if you are choosing between multiple offers. Find someone who will actually give you a legit answer too, because in the super-proud-promtional med student fashion, some people can't say anything negative, or tell you irrelevant minor weaknesses in an effort to be their school's best promoter.

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Most of the negative points so far have been about the city, and not much about the program/curriculum/school, and so I'll throw a couple in:

 

1. Tuition - I think we pay one of the highest in all of Canada. We also have fewer class time than most schools too, hmm...

 

2. This might be a small thing, but we do not get off-campus access to resources like UpToDate. However, it's not the end of the world, but considering the tuition we pay, we should at least have access to it.

 

Anyways, these are very very minor things in comparison to all the positives.

 

 

3) The winters are pretty frigid, especially if you're from the coasts. Mind you with Winterlude and skating on the canal, I've spent more time outdoors in my first Ottawa winter than any of my London winters. You just need a serious coat and boots. I'm sure anyone from UofA, Sask or Mantioba would laugh at what I thought was brutally cold.

 

 

It makes me :D when I see people here wearing Canada Goose jackets in -15C weather! I don't even own a real winter jacket, boots or gloves. The coldest it's ever been was probably -20C. Maybe a few odd days where the thermometer has dipped lower than that, otherwise, the winter here is quite tolerable.

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It makes me :D when I see people here wearing Canada Goose jackets in -15C weather! I don't even own a real winter jacket, boots or gloves. The coldest it's ever been was probably -20C. Maybe a few odd days where the thermometer has dipped lower than that, otherwise, the winter here is quite tolerable.
Winter this year wasn't too bad. Ottawa can get to -35C easily.
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