Thursday, January 18, 2007

Jobs at McGill

'Tis the season.

McGill University is looking to hire in geometric computing and bioinformatics. I can think of at least three reasons for any new Ph.D to apply:

* It's Canada ! Everyone gets funded by the government ! Need I say more ?
* It's in Montreal: where else can you get the feeling you're in a strange dream where you're in Paris but everyone speaks English ?
* You can "do research" in Barbados whenever you like, and definitely in the winter.

and most importantly,
* they have a job opening for people who do geometry for a living. How civilized is that ?

4 comments:

  1. Another reason to apply: McGill is one of the most reputable universities in all of Canada. It's always ranked pretty high up in the evaluation charts published by Maclean's magazine every year.

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  2. Hmmm... not sure Montreal looks and feels like Paris or France. Typically, and this happened to me this year, when you bring a postdoc over to Montreal from France, they come to realize "oh! my gosh! this is a different country!".

    Yes folks. Montreal is not in France.

    However, Montreal is a pretty good city:

    - cost of living is probably the lower in North America, you can own a house without being a millionaire;

    - the crime rate is low (in typical Canadian fashion) and we are not at war with the muslim world and the axis of evil;

    - you get to learn French if you don't already know it, and there is good evidence that being bilingual is good for your brain as you age;

    - I live there (isn't that the best reason of all to come to Montreal).

    However, you may find it difficult to raise 300k$ a year in funding the way so many researchers do in the USA. We tend to spread the funding a lot.

    The economy in Montreal, while not being terrible, is typically weaker than the rest of North America. Salaries are lower. The fact that upward of 40% of the working force is unionized does not help.

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  3. You may find it difficult to raise 300k$ a year in funding the way so many researchers do in the USA.

    Wow, keep in mind that overheads are non-existent in Canada. Just recently a US researcher was complaining about how each graduate student costs him upwards of $70,000 by the time he's paid for salary, office space, tuition, etc. Comparable cost in Canada is $10-20K.

    The economy in Montreal, while not being terrible, is typically weaker than the rest of North America.

    Plus you get to live under constant threat of the country splitting in two, courtesy of separatist types which lack the imagination to conceive of a place where people are proud of their province and their country.

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  4. various jobs here

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