[CS-FSLUG] Seeking opinions

[Nathan T.]

Just thought I'd update everyone on this.

  DeVry is now out of the question, once they found out I was
interested they sent some paperwork, and they called several times.
The paper work was already filled out for me, all I had to do was
sign, and every time they called they were almost like kids in the
back seat saying "are we there yet" but much more subtly. I suspected
before hand that they wouldn't have been my best option, they were a
backup plan, but now the guidance counsellor at the school I'm
currently in has come fourth with his concerns. DeVry in Canada never
tends to stay in the same place, it's gotten several reviews where
people complained that it was a glorified expensive high school, the
application fee was more than double that of the best of universities
in Canada, and once the truth slipped out that they didn't actually
get you a bachelors degree (despite what they claimed initially) I had
decided I wouldn't attend and my mother even said she wouldn't help me
with tuition if I chose that school.

I'm considering the University of Saskatchewan, although the thought
of a town the size of Saskatoon is intimidating. Most of my friends
from Prince Albert will be going there, and the school is supposed to
be a good one, but they have an awful web site as from what little
information I could scrounge they require far more courses unrelated
to my field of study than any other post-secondary institutions I've
seen.

The University of Alberta's Augustana campus is interesting, they have
an interesting deal on the table. Their annual tuition seems gravely
steep until you find out it covers an all you can eat buffet serving
up three meals a day as well as housing from what I understood. They
offer a decent computer science program. Sadly their CS curriculum
centers around newer technology like Java and Microsoft's dotNet.

Mount Allison in Sackville, NB is the farthest from home, but they
also have the best CS curriculum I've seen out of any other University
so far. They teach C++, FORTRAN, and Unix! I kid you not, they have a
very tempting CS course and the funny thing is despite being good
enough to be amongst the best in the Macleans guide to Canadian
Universities they are also a small university and they have Christian
theology courses! The down side is that it's very far from home, I'd
have to travel from Yellowknife, NT to Sackville, NB alone. It also
seems to have more mathematics based course requirements that start at
the difficulty level of Calculus.

Acadia University which is also in NB is seeming more interesting,
apparently it's a good one for CS courses; however it also has an
above average problem with laptop theft. I'm going to be looking more
into it later on.