Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!csri.toronto.edu!clarke
Newsgroups: ont.general
From: clarke@csri.toronto.edu (Jim Clarke)
Subject: Re: Spending for education
Message-ID: <1989Nov27.114400.21617@jarvis.csri.toronto.edu>
Keywords: money
References: <606@alias.UUCP> <12258@watcgl.waterloo.edu> <7470@cognos.UUCP> <12313@watcgl.waterloo.edu> <7544@heraclitus.UUCP> <1989Nov24.122558.9658@jarvis.csri.toronto.edu> <31980@watmath.waterloo.edu>
Distribution: ont
Date: 27 Nov 89 16:44:00 GMT

>Last week I wrote:
>...
>>Things are better now, but they're not what they should be.  And this is
>>at U of T, supposedly significantly better off than most other Canadian
>>universities.  

sccowan@watmsg.waterloo.edu (S. Crispin Cowan) replied:

>Keeping in mind that this is simply my media-generated impression of
>UofT; but I had been given to understand that UofT class sizes were
>significantly WORSE than most other universities.  Correct me if
>wrong.

In computer science, during the peak of enrolments, I think we were worse
than The Opposition -- Waterloo, naturally -- by a factor of between 1.3
and 2, with the usual case being around 1.3.  That's certainly "significant,"
but it's not enormous.

The operative word above is "think":  I didn't have statistics then, and
certainly don't now (because class size is so much less of a worry).  I
learned what I knew from Waterloo graduates who had come to U of T for
graduate study.

One of the changes we ought to remember is that it used to be roughly
accurate, though a simplification, to talk about just U of T and Waterloo.
Now there are quite a few good places to go, so choosing a university
for undergraduate computer science is more like choosing one for any other
discipline, and you might well choose someplace other than U of T if you
want small classes.  (On the other hand, a long time ago, I went to McGill
for physics, and certainly had smaller classes than at U of T; I remember
being surprised that my contemporaries at here had classes of 50 in fourth
year, instead of the 20 or so that I had.  But I don't recall thinking
they got a worse education.)
-
Jim Clarke -- Dept. of Computer Science, Univ. of Toronto, Canada M5S 1A4
              (416) 978-4058
clarke@csri.toronto.edu     or    clarke@csri.utoronto.ca
   or ...!{uunet, pyramid, watmath, ubc-cs}!utai!utcsri!clarke


Brought to you by Super Global Mega Corp .com