Why Western?

 

Community

The University of Western Ontario is located in London, Ontario. It is the second largest university in Ontario and the fifth largest in Canada. It is one of the most beautiful campuses in Canada.

London is located in Southwestern Ontario, 200 kilometres from both Toronto and Detroit. There are excellent train and bus connections between London and Toronto and special discounts are given to students. London and surrounding area has about 350,000 people.

London has a climate with daytime temperatures averaging about -10 Celsius in January and 27 Celsius in July with few hot (over 30C) and humid days.

London is one of the least expensive cities in Ontario. The cost of housing is less than Waterloo and Hamilton and significantly less than Toronto.

There are many social and cultural activities within the city. London has an excellent symphony, theatres, art gallaries and bookstores. Each summer, London hosts the largest air show in North America, a balloon festival and several musical festivals. In addition, there are internationally known drama festivals at Stratford (40 minute drive from London) and at Niagara-on-the-Lake (1 1/2 hours from London).

There are a number of parks in London and southwestern Ontario that provide excellent hiking trails and camping including Georgian Bay and Algonquin Provincial Park. It is possible to go diving at Canada's only underwater national park at Tobermory. The winter provides excellent opportunities for cross-country skiing and downhill skiing is two hours away. The summer provides many sandy and uncrowded beaches less than an hour's drive from London.

Further information about London can be found at http://www.city.london.on.ca/ .

Department of Computer Science

The University of Western Ontario is an excellent place for graduate studies in Computer Science. The department covers a broad spectrum of research activities and areas. Emerging areas include grid computing, legal issues in computing, web services and programming languages.

The Department has excellent computing facilities. Recently, the Department received funding from federal, provincial and industrial sources for the Ontario Research Centre for Computer Algebra and for building the fastest academic supercomputer in Canada (SharcNet).

The faculty are enthusastic and work closely with their graduate students on a regular basis.

Student Life

The student community is encouraged to organise recreational activities and other events. Recently, the students organised a softball team to play with other university softball teams. Other activities have included movie nights and potlucks.

The University provides excellent gym and sport facilities at either no or low cost for students.

The Department is in the same building as the Graduate Club. This is a pub operated by the Society of Graduate Students and is open to both graduate students and faculty.

 

Western provides the best student experience among Canada's leading research-intensive universities.