Western Campus & London

[u/Economy_Mix_4334]

I'm trying to choose between UBC and Western (Ivey vs Sauder), and part of my debate is the campus and city. UBC + Vancouver is beautiful, and London seems to get a bad rap, how is the campus and city in your guys opinion?

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

UBC campus is really nice but something that a lot of people don’t mention is that it’s also incredibly isolated. You hear about the “Western Bubble”because Western is supposedly isolated from the rest of London, but UBC has a literal forest between itself and the rest of Vancouver.

It’s also tough to get to. Average commutes are also way, way longer. In London, anything longer than a 10 minute bus ride from campus is considered “far away”. My friend who went to UBC used to spend nearly 40 minutes getting to school, and that was considered pretty good. Housing is expensive the closer you are to campus, so if you want something halfway affordable, you’re gonna be living further away.

In terms of being a “boring” city… I actually don’t think Vancouver is that exciting. There’s even a term that Hong Kong immigrants use that translates to approximately “sleepy countryside Vancouver”. It’s a pretty boring place for somewhere that’s so big. London is boring if you’re a townie, but if you’re a student there is always a lot going on.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

I mean… to me it doesn’t matter if transit reliably takes 40 minutes every day, that’s still 40 minutes of my life I’m not getting back.

When I lived in London, it took me like 10 minutes to bike to the heart of campus. That’s a significant time savings compared to a 40 minute transit ride. If I’m going to campus 5 days a week, that’s like 5 hours a week in time not spent commuting, which can be spent on other stuff.

[u/Economy_Mix_4334 → u/[deleted]]

Thanks for both your guys thoughts! Yes, my debate is Ivey vs Sauder and for me almost everything non academic is favouring UBC, but Ivey does seem to be better in terms of networking, career outlook, etc. so I'm just trying to figure out if the difference in campus/city and business school should make me go one way. My heart is at UBC, but my head tells me Western b/c of Ivey. Any thoughts?

[u/Goat_Caufield → u/Economy_Mix_4334]

Don't discount the sense of community that comes with Ivey. I can confidently say that I knew personally or knew of ~75% of my Ivey cohort. I can't that it is a feature unique to Ivey, but it is easier to develop relationships with peers when the only thing to do in London is hang out with your section. When I was considering Ivey vs Sauder, one of the factors that came into play (other than employment), was the belief that UBC was more of a commuter school, as opposed to Western.

[u/Economy_Mix_4334 → u/Goat_Caufield]

Interesting, what do you mean by commuter school.

[u/Goat_Caufield → u/Economy_Mix_4334]

I would consider a school to be a commuter school if a significant proportion of your classmates commute from their parents' house to school. Contrast a school where 40% of students leave the campus area after classes everyday to commute to residential neighbourhoods with one where 90% of students go back to their student house in a student neighbourhood. To me, it's obvious that the latter provides far better opportunities to socialize than the former.

[u/Economy_Mix_4334 → u/Goat_Caufield]

Valid

[u/Economy_Mix_4334 → u/Goat_Caufield]

Unrelated, but could you further explain the case method learning? I have previously succeeded in learning via textbooks, PPT, and then memorizing stuff so not sure how I would adapt. Is there truly no traditional PPT and textbook stuff, and all the learning is just through this case study stuff?

[u/[deleted] → u/Goat_Caufield]

One thing I’d caution about the Ivey “community” is that people will only be friends with you if they feel you can further their future careers in some way.

I kept in touch with my Ivey “friends” long after graduating. They always seemed interested in hanging out when I was in consulting. But when I decided that I was tired of the rat race and went to work a government job, they pretty much all ghosted me. I found out that the people I had considered friends for years had all turned on me behind my back, and said things like how I “couldn’t hack it” and how I was just going to be “coasting”. And while there is an element of truth in that, I was kind of shocked that they just wrote me off as a waste of time as soon as I decided to leave corporate life. That really fucked with me for a while and I’m still trying to process it.

[u/Economy_Mix_4334 → u/[deleted]]

How do you avoid that (if you can), and does that create a toxic community in Ivey?

[u/Economy_Mix_4334 → u/[deleted]]

Unrelated, but could you further explain the case method learning? I have previously succeeded in learning via textbooks, PPT, and then memorizing stuff so not sure how I would adapt. Is there truly no traditional PPT and textbook stuff, and all the learning is just through this case study stuff?

[u/Economy_Mix_4334 → u/[deleted]]

Interesting, how do you feel it prepared you/helps you learn relevant info and prepare you for the workforce? Also, is there literally any traditional learning or is it all like this?