Masters Program Questions: University of British Columbia or Edinburgh
I am in desperate need of advice regarding a masters program choice. I have just been offered places at UBC (probably under Leonid Chindelevitch or Cedric Chauve who are both actually at SFU) as well as a place in the UoE Informatics masters program. The UoE Bioinformatics component seems less developed than UBC but the diversity of courses is astounding (especially for someone with interests in Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroinformatics). I am primarily a mathematician but have worked in disease bioinformatics labs in my home country. I am looking for a course with a rigorous approach and solid foundations in Machine Learning. Does anyone have experience with either of these programs? Any advice would be really appreciated!
Edit: I should add that I am also interested in the development of interaction and metabolic networks, phylogenies and their analysis which is what I worked on as an undergraduate in my home country, so topics in combinatorics or probabilistic modelling would also be very important.
Posted Jan 29, 2016, 10:17 AM UTC · edited
Happy to answer questions about Vancouver and UBC - I did both a masters and PhD there (UBC main campus and the Genome Sciences Centre, respectively).
Unfortunately, I can't help with Machine Learning or SFU, but I have been to Edinburgh... beautiful city!
Can't say I'd be unhappy in either place.
Hi Thanks so much, I really appreciate the response! I'm on kinda a short time frame regarding the decision and could use any info I can get. I was wondering if you could let me know a few details about the MSc at UBC. 1.) Im a little confused about length. The UBC course website seems to suggest that the course takes on average 2.7 years for most students to complete. Is that actually representative? 2.) How did you find the coursework in terms of theoretical/mathematical depth? 3.) I'm a bit confused about the amount of coursework actually needed. Do most people finish their credit requirements in the first year and then focus on the thesis or is the coursework more continuous? 4.) Do you by chance know anything about Leonid Chindelevitch or Cedric Chauve?
Thanks in advance for any help!
Hey,
No problem - I'm not sure what info you need. Just keep asking questions, and I'll see what I can dig up for you.
That's probably accurate. I did my Masters in Microbiology & Immunology, and most masters are about 3 years. I rushed mine as much as possible, and it took two and a half years. PhDs in that department were usually closer to 7 years, though. Not a fast department by any stretch. If your department says they take 2.7 years, they're probably not exaggerating. Of course, the time it takes for your degree is probably 75% determined by you alone - the harder you work, the faster you can get out.
The good thing about course work is that YOU choose the courses. I personally love a good challenge, so I took a few that were pretty tough. Then again, I mostly took biochemistry/genetics and computer science courses, and I thought they were great. I did take the time to talk to the profs before hand, if I was worried about the course material. I don't think that ever discouraged me from taking a course, really. I did end up in one where I became the token "biologist" in a group project, but that was a fantastic course anyhow.
Again, depends on the department. I seem to recall that I had 3 courses in each of the first two terms, although one of them was a "project" course, in which you presented your lab work. By the end of the spring term, you're usually done with course work, and full time on your project. (Maybe TA'ing?) So, 8 months at 60-70% course work, 30-40% research. After that, it's usually 90% research.
Alas, I don't know anything about Leonid Chindelevitch or Cedric Chauve.... can't contribute anything there.
Feel free to ask anything else you want to know. And, of course, good luck with your decision!
Thanks so much for all your help. If I could upvote you twice... This has really helped me in making my decision, I decided to go for UoE (mostly due to course diversity and length considerations). I'm not really a fully fledged bioinformatician yet and so feel apprehensive about committing to a 3 year project, supervisor and department of which I have no first hand experience.
Fair enough - I hope I didn't scare you away from something you would have done well in.
Either way, I can't imagine UoE wouldn't be awesome either. Hope it all works out well for you! (-: