Question about Canadian universities/colleges

In another thread earlier today, I mentioned that I really didn’t have a firm idea of my desired career when I finally decided that I needed to get it together and go to college.

The poster to whom I’d been offereing advice replied that:

This has me confused. Most schools here whose requirements I’ve been aware of will let someone get about halfway through a four year bachelor’s program as undeclared. And even though I entered a state university with a (Quick!! Pick a) major, I took many courses outside my major (I was a psych major to begin with, but I took math, physics, chemistry, business, economics, music, etc., well beyond any elective requirements).

Are there not schools in Canada where you can pursue an education in that manner? Surely there are Liberal Arts Colleges?

I’m confused about how it works up there. Please enlighten me. Do you have something equivalent to our systems of state universities? How about municipal/county* community college systems?
*[sub]Somewhat peripherally, do you have political subdivisions equivalent to counties?[/sub]

A quick follow-up occurs: is this possibly the result of a miscommunication based on slight differences between the way Canadians and Americans use the words “college” and “university?”

Quite possibly. I’m not going to bother reading the other thread, but we have plenty of universities that offer bachelor programs and allow you to go without declaring a major for some time. The chief difference is that most offer both 3 and 4 year bachelor programs, whereas in the US it’s nearly universally 4 years, so far as I can tell. Graduate schools are also organized rather differently - generally one is required to have a master’s degree before applying to Ph.D. programs, rather than the American situation where the two degrees are more like different possible outcomes of the same program. Anyways.

“College” in Canada does more often refer to community colleges or technical institutes, which generally are oriented towards training for specific jobs. However, as noted, there is no shortage of universities that aren’t at all like that.

As to your peripheral question, it depends. Some provinces have counties. Others do not. In any event, government at the county level has next to no power, and any community colleges or technical institutes are run by provincial governments. (There may be exceptions to this rule, but that’s how it is in every province I’m familiar enough with to answer with any authority.)

Yes, you can enter college without an end goal in mind, so to speak. Many colleges do offer what are sometimes called “career” programs, which are certificate/diploma programs that are very specific training for an area of employment (eg. lab technician, early childhood education, etc.). Some colleges also offer trades programs (electrician, plumber, mechanic, etc.). Any college will offer what are often called “university transfer” courses also, which are the standard university courses (arts, sciences, business, etc.)

The poster may be thinking of a technical institute, which is not the same as a college. I believe they offer programs like the “career” programs I talked about above, plus trades programs, and any arts/science-type courses (e.g. English) will be specific to the program they are offered for (e.g. English for business students), and not transferrable to university.

Our usage of the words “university” and “college” tends to reflect the usage from the English system, although it’s by no means an exact equivalent. “University” means the overall degree-granting authority; “college” means an affiliated sub-unit, which may specialise in a particular field, or might be a federated liberal arts body. An example of the latter is the University of Toronto, which has affiliated colleges like Trinity College, Wycliffe College, Massey College, and so on. They are affiliated with the U of T, but have their own profs, teach their own courses.

Another university might use “college” to refer to the different faculties. An example of that is the University of Saskatchewan, which has the College of Arts & Sciences, College of Law, College of Medicine.

Some of the other posters have suggested a third meaning of “college”, to mean a technical school or community college. That likely is province-specific - I’m not personally familiar with any colleges of that type.

But as a general rule, degree-granting institutions are normally called “university” up here. Offhand, I can’t think of a degree-granting college that isn’t affiliated in some way with a university, but I don’t pretend to be omniscient on that point - can any Canadian doper give an example of such a beast?

In Ontario, “colleges” are “Colleges of Applied Arts and Technology”, non-degree-granting institutions that are oriented towards technical training for specific occupations. Their courses are 1- to 3-years.

“Universities” grant four- or more-year degrees, have post-graduate studies, do research, etc. They may be divided into separate divisions called “colleges” or “schools” as well.

Some universities have had satellite campuses named as colleges. The satellite campuses of the University of Toronto, formerly known as Erindale College and Scarborough College, are now known as UTM and UTS, University of Toronto at Mississauga and Scarborough. But they were always part of U of T.

There are various private colleges as well, but no private universities in Ontario. I think.

The usage difference between “college” and “university” is quite distinct, even though the actual lines between the institutions have become blurred in recent years, with a number of colleges and universites sharing facilities or programs.

At least one college, Ryerson Polytechnic Instute, has been upgraded to a full university. The new University of Ontario Institute of Technology shares facilities with Durham College in Oshawa.

If an Ontarian says he went to college, he did NOT go to a four-year institution. If an Ontarian went to a four-year institution, she “went to university”. Even though she might have been enrolled in the School of Architecture or College of Ophthamology, she’ll say, “I went to university” or “when I was at university”.

Many of these institutions, colleges and universities both, have a wide range of pay-as-you-go evening courses for the general public, that may or may not count towards a specific program. I believe the University of Toronto also operates public- and high-school courses, though I don’t know much about them.

This is confusing me now too… I live in Canada and I don’t understand what people are saying.

To me University is generally a 4 year course but you have to declare what you are going into. You can say go into the ‘Sciences’ and change your science major but that would also mean the doing of courses that you should’ve done your first year or two and now have to take because you changed your mind. Maybe it’s the careers I was looking at but I saw very specific courses that you had to take in each year if you were a full time student.

Colleges were much the same with courses similar (and often the same as the universities, at least the local ones, despite not being affiliated with each other) to university. If you were unsure of your ‘sciences’ designation you could do a transfer course and then decide what you wanted to do when you switched to uni at the third year. Though if you were doing an honors course of course you’d have to take the specific classes anyway despite being at college. They also ran courses that could be taken in 4 years or two years depending on the course and how long you wanted to take it (one course I know was a 2 and 4 year course but more intensive in the two years while the 4 years had a practical part to it so you got on the job experience).

The technical institutes (which I plan to attend one) are more streamlined into getting you what you need to get into a career. They teach you, get you practical training and lots of hands on learning so you get whichever piece of paper you need as a requirement for the job (tickets for the rigs or camps, those computer certifications, Business Administration specialized in Accounting etc) It is also possible to get your Bachelor’s degree from these institutions after taking the initial first 2 years. So you don’t have to attend uni to get a Bachelor’s in say… Accounting (an example I know is true) There is also a generally higher rate of employment directly out of these schools because of the hands on work and practicals. Often students are hired before they graduate.

Probably long winded but that’s kinda how I always saw them. Also, though colleges are slightly easier to get into the easiest would have to be the technical institutes. But, they have a higher level of people getting hired right out of school. It’s first come first serve so long as you apply early and meet requirements you get in and won’t be bumped for students with higher grades (though that doesn’t happen in uni or college here either AFAIK)

Obsidian Flutterby: It’s more like you have to have a rough idea of what you want to do when you start, like “life sciences” or “physical sciences” or something. This decides what courses you take in your first year. After your first year, you have to decide on a more specific program, like human biology or environmental chemistry. The first-year courses for these are the same, so you aren’t locked into something very specific during your first year.

There are private degree-granting institutions in Canada; there are schools that are essentially private universities that offer mostly religious degrees (‘Bible colleges’ and rabbinical schools). There are also a large number of career colleges that offer degrees in computers or business administration or something like that; these are geared towards adults that want to change careers, and usually have very few entry requirements and can be completed quickly (in less time than a College of Applied Arts and Technology).

The public- and high-school courses offered by the University of Toronto (University of Toronto Public Schools) are actually something between a private school and a public school. They’re ‘teaching schools’ – like a teaching hospital, only for education instead of medicine. I’m not sure if all universities offering degrees in education have them, but it seems like they would.

Northern Piper: The University of Toronto is especially specific in its organization. The “colleges” of the University of Toronto are mostly just names for the places students live and receive certain services (like course counselling) from. (Of course, you also have to pay ‘incidental fees’ to support clubs and the like at your college.) Colleges do have faculty associated with them, and they do offer courses, but the majority of the faculty are unassociated with any college.

There are also several Faculties, such as the Faculty of Arts and Science, to which most of the professors are attached. Some universities seem to use “College” for this level. Most of the students are enrolled in the Faculty of Arts and Science, which is responsible for granting most degrees that aren’t in a very specific field such as music, divinity, law or medicine. (Basically, anything that can ultimately lead to a Ph.D. doctorate is in the Faculty of Arts and Science). Within the faculty are a number of Departments to which professors are directly attached. Departments teach courses and conduct research in a specific field, such as biology or classics. It may be the same in the States, but I’m not sure.

My response above was specifically for British Columbia (I should have made that clear). I think part of the difficulty is that each province seems to have their own system, rather than a nationwide standard.

My understanding of Ontario system has been stated above, with colleges more focused towards career paths and universities more focused on academia.

Quebec, as always, is a little different.

We have CEGEPs, here which stand for College d’Etudes Generales et Professionels. They are usually called colloquially CEGEPs, but many of the English insitutions have “college” in their names. In Quebec, high school ends after grade 11, and one enters CEGEP. As the name suggests, the intention is twofold. You can take a professional program, a three-year course (which you must choose at the beginning, although obviously you can change your mind later) such as Mechanical Tech, Computer Science, Professional Theatre or Office Management. The other option is to take a pre-university course which last for two years. The programs in this option are more like Creative Arts, Liberal Arts, Health Sciences, Social Sciences etc.

Applicants to university, unless they are from out-of-province, must have their pre-u CEGEP certificate. After that, a B.A or a B.Sc is a three-year degree. Since we have one less year than Americans to spend there, it’s a wise choice to make a decision as to what program you want to be in early. You do need to choose from the beginning but, again, swtiching is easy and often will not affect the time you spend at university.

Having spent the last 35 years at a Canadian university, I feel fully qualified to declaim on the subject. First the terminology. Univeristy here covers both colleges and universities in the US. A college tends to be either a technical school or a vocational institution, such as programming or religious, the latter leading to ordination. I will stick to universities.

When I first came here, there was a system in place (actually in the process of being abandoned) in which you could either get an honours degree in a subject or a general degree, with no major at all. There were also “faculty programmes” a kind of very reduced major or, mostly, joint major. One of the faculty programs was in math, physics, chemistry, and biology. Why not call it just general science? The only actual requirements for a general degree were that some upper level courses be included, plus, of course, a certain number of credits. The honours degree, on the other hand, was entirely different. You basically could not do it unless you started it in your first year. Oh, it was theoretically possible, but rather difficult, to go into honours in the second year, but almost no one could do within the usual time. Moreover, from the beginning, the honours students were segregated from the regular students in special honours courses. After a year or so, the general degree was revamped with a required major added. Even so, there were no such thing as distribution requirements. You needed a certain number of credits (90, if you were in a three year program, coming from a CEGEP as described above, 120 in a four year program) and a minimum of 48 in your major subject. The latter is much more than is required by US colleges. IIRC, when I was in college, the major required 32 and honors was just one special course or exam. Getting back to here, the honours degree is even more demanding, requiring 54 credits in the major. A joint honours in math and physics requires 36 in each. In a 90 credit program, this leaves only 18 credits outside the program. I doubt that such a concentration would be permitted at any US school. Inevitably, some of those 54 honours credits are going to be in graduate courses or at least mixed graduate/undergraduate courses.

Graduate school is much closer to the US model. In contrast to what was said above, at least when I was in graduate school, nearly all the students got a master’s before entering the PhD program. And that is true here, although it is certainly possible to get a PhD without the master’s. The main difference is that the master’s here tends to be a mini-PhD with demanding thesis, outside examiners, the whole works. I am astonished that some departments keep students 4 years in the master’s program. They tend to be laboratory sciences and they view their students as cheap technicians.

In general, the best undergrads tend to be better than the best at US universities. But then they go south for graduate school and the dregs remain, so the graduate programs are rather weak. Plus lots of foreign students and the number has gone way up since it has become so hard for them to go to the US.

Although this is based on my experience at one university and provinces other than Quebec do not have CEGEPs, I don’t think the question of concentration and distribution requirements is any different elsewhere. Very strong honours programs and weak graduate schools.

Okay that does make sense then… except as I said (for certain courses at least) I found outlines of courses you must take all 4 years to get your Bachelors, with only a few options stuck in and those were merely to define part of where your study went.

Of course I am going on the Honors program for Paleontology where the only real options you get to choose from determine whether you study vertebrates or invertebrates… so yeah I never claimed to be knowledgable about it. :stuck_out_tongue: this is just coming from the perspective of a 20y/o woman trying to figure out what to do with her life. It’s all so confusing!!

I went to Queen’s University and did not have to declare a major until year 2. (I did anyway, but it would not have made any difference if I’d changed it.)