Canada Ahoy!?

It might seem odd, to have an article recommending Canada on a website about American grad schools, but it isn't too odd considering that Canada is a North American country after all. Canada is a fabulous country in many respects. If you watched the Winter Olympics last month, you may have realized how scenic the Vancouver is.





Universities
The University of Toronto is arguably the leading graduate school in Canada. If you look through the faculty lists of most top schools in Canada, UToronto grads feature in large proportions. The Rotman School of Business at the University of Toronto is also featured prominently in many business school rankings for their stress on Design Thinking. Richard Florida is one of the prominent thinkers from Rotman, and is the author of a best-selling book from last year called "Who's your city? (Recommended reading) At my workplace in Silicon Valley there are a large number of Canadians who studied engineering at the University of Waterloo and a few from McGill University in Montreal. McGill is known as the MIT of Canada and has a very strong reputation in the United States as well.


Immigration
Immigration to Canada is much simpler than the United States. You could gain permanent residency almost as soon as you complete your graduate school program. There are also no per-country limits (like the United States) and getting a job offer is sufficient qualification for a Canadian Green Card.  3 years with permanent residency qualifies you to apply for Canadian citizenship and you are pretty much free to move around the world after that. Canadian citizens can work in the US on TN visas and can drive to the border and enter the US without a prior visa process.

Industry
Most of the big American firms have offices in Canada. The Greater Toronto Area is a semiconductor hub with offices of AMD, Qualcomm, Synopsys, Altera and others. The Vancouver area has offices of Microsoft, Intel, PMC-Sierra, Broadcom and IBM. Blackberry maker Research in Motion is based in Canada as well. If consulting is your thing, McKinsey& Co also has a practice in Toronto.

Other points to consider
Canada has universal health care, which might be good to have in the future in your senior years. But you do have to pay higher taxes for that benefit. Canada has been less affected by the Great Recession of 2009 as well. It's rumored that salaries are somewhat lower in Canada though. One of the other big downsides is the not so great weather.