It’s that time of the year for someone applying to graduate schools that you start to hear back from everywhere you applied, narrow your options, and finally decide where you want to spend 5-ish years of your early twenties working towards a PhD. (For anyone interested, I’m going for a PhD in chemistry.) Anyway, I’ve been accepted to McGill and I’m seriously considering attending. Seeing as how I’m an American and I’ve never lived outside of my home state of Colorado, I’m somewhat curious as to the experiences people have had a) moving to Canada and b) living in Montreal. Any help is greatly appreciated.
ETA: I suppose this may be more appropriate in MPSIMS, but it’s kind of an opinion… right?
No doubt MontréalDopers will be along to expand on things, but I can say a few things. Montréal is a bilingual city. You can live there in either French or English, and many use both. Montréal is only 50 km from the US border, and Autoroute 15 plugs directly into Interstate 87 at the New York border. Montréal has an excellent transit system, and the Métro is architecturally spectacular.
Québec is the most metric area of Canada, and has writing conventions that differ from US or “English-Canadian” methods: 15h30 instead of 3:30PM, and also 3,14159 instead of 3.14159.
I actually know a fair amount of French, on account of taking it in high school and some in college. That being said, it’s Parisian French, so I’d imagine the accent would take some getting used to…
There are several people on the SDMB who live in Montreal right now, so they would be the best to give current advice.
That being said, I lived in Montreal for quite a few years some time ago, and go back to visit regularly, since I still have family there.
Montreal is a wonderful city – very cosmopolitan and diverse, with people from all over the world. As has been mentioned, the transit system is excellent. While you’re there, I hope you take the time to explore some of the different neighborhoods.
Most people speak French as their first language, but there is a sizable minority population with English as their first language, mostly on the West side of the city. (And plenty of immigrants whose mother tongue is neither French nor English.) In any case, in Montreal proper many, many people are bilingual. Outside the city that’s less true – French only is much more predominant. Signs are almost entirely in French – that’s the law.
It’s a major city, so it has all the big city amenities – bars, restaurants, museums, sports, whatever you might be interested in.
I loved living there, and nowadays I love visiting.
Around ten, fifteen years ago it was very inexpensive compared to Toronto. I remember hearing about apartments going for $500/month. I believe this was fallout of the political contortions of the seventies, when a lot of English-speaking people and companies decamped for friendlier climes (mostly Toronto*), and as a result, there was a large supply of accommodation, bith residential and commercial. I believe that this is less true today.
These prices are still significantly less than those in Toronto, about 20%. )I’d be surprised to get a 1-bedroom in T.O. for less than 900. I don’t know about New York or San Francisco, or even Dallas.
And there is, or was, a tendency for everyone to move on the same day, July 1st, because that’s when the standard 1-year lease term expired. I don’t know if this is still done.
[sub]*The tallest office building in Toronto bears the logo of the Bank of Montreal. But it, technically, is not the legal headquarters of the bank.[/sub]
Also, bear in mind that unlike a lot of North American cities, Montreal has plenty of large, dense residential areas within easy transit distance of downtown and the universities – Verdun, Hochelaga, the Sud-Ouest, Cote-des-Neiges, Parc Extension, and so forth, or a little further out, Mercier, Ahuntsic, Saint-Laurent, LaSalle, or Nouveau Rosemont. It gets cheaper the further out you go, although proportionately less convenient (mitigated by being close to the metro, especially the green or orange lines). Don’t make the mistake of only looking in downtown or the Plateau for a place.
I second what Suranyi said, and would like to emphasize that a lot of people who come here to study get caught in a sort of bubble where they end up only frequenting other students and student places. (What’s especially sad is a lot of them chose Montreal in order to learn French and have fun, neither of which they end up doing.)
I was talking to a McGill student a while ago who described a place in the heart of the Plateau (Papineau x Mont-Royal) as being “really far away.” I guess that puts my home neighbourhood of Verdun on the moon! Then there was my friend who had a joint birthday party with me but didn’t bring any of her friends because “they never leave Mile End.” Don’t be these people.
Those of us who’ve become adept at getting the most out of the city think nothing of hopping on the metro and cruising across town for whatever. Make sure you explore and get to know different neighbourhoods – they each have their own flavour but with a strong Montreal-ness about them. The Heritage Montreal tours are good for this.
Also, shop around for an apartment – the most fun are what Montrealers call “duplexes” or “triplexes,” which are one floor of a two- or three-storey residential building. If you can afford one (and they can be as cheap as anything else, depending on the neighbourhood), they’re much more homey, they have more character, and they’re the real Montreal experience, plus they usually have balconies and hardwood floors.
Not sure what else to add for the present, but feel free to ask away!
Montreal winters can be VERY cold, and VERY snowy. I know that in Colorado you have snowy winters, but make sure you can handle the winter weather if you want to live in Montreal. That’s the one thing I don’t miss.
Montréal is one of my favorite cities - I would love to live there again (I did when I was a child).
It’s much more cosmopolitan than many other North American cities, and has an excellent variety of things to do.
I second matt_mcl - hop on the Metro and cruise around town for a day or 10 - a friend and I visited about 2 years ago and wound up doing that quite a bit - it’s cool just to people watch, and you’ll find the coolest little shops and places to eat by doing that.
Generally the people are very nice and friendly; however, if you approach a french speaker, try to speak french first - my friend got us sent on a few wild goose chases by asking for directions in straight english (with a Philadelpha accent no less). It shows that you respect the language and are trying, even if you’re not very good at it.
If you’re obviously an English speaker, people will generally switch into English when you start in French. (This can actually be a little bit frustrating when you’re earnestly trying to learn French. Should this be the case, you can just continue in French, or say “merci, mais il faut que je pratique,” or the like.)
A friend of mine and fellow doper - Svejk - just started McGill in september (PhD poli sci) and he’ll probably be along before too long. the only thing I can remember him saying is that the university housing is overpriced. Also, you can get by with English, but attempting to speak french (or asking whether you can speak English) is appreciated.
Hmm… overpriced university housing? Since I’ll (presumably) be living off of a graduate stipend, that sounds like bad news bears. On the other hand, I know a fair amount of French, so that helps my street cred, yes?
Yes, indeed. Since most people in Montreal are French, if you’re talking to somebody you don’t know it’s a good idea to say the first sentence in French, if you know how. It’s a nice couresy. Very likely he or she will switch to accented English if your French can’t keep up.
Bear in mind that, depending on how it is counted, about 15% of the people in Montreal speak English as a first language – they’ll switch to English even faster!
(My family is part of this English-speaking minority.)
I’ve always found that you have to fight people in Montreal to get them to speak French to you. I’ve had conversations where I speak French and the other person speaks English and neither of us gives in.
By “overpriced university housing,” does your friend maybe just mean that in comparison to the fairly reasonable rents in the rest of the city, it costs too much to live in McGill-owned housing? A friend of mine also started a PhD there in the fall and found she could get a much nicer place than she could here in Victoria for the same amount. (Which to be fair isn’t saying that much - Victoria’s terribly overpriced and has a real housing shortage.) I think she’s paying something like $550/month to share a very nice apartment with one other person.
