<p>Just wondering what the experience was for those Canadians who did their studies at an Ivy League university and came back to Canada. I didn’t find it didnt matter at all in Canada for me. When I got my master’s from Columbia I got back to Toronto and couldn’t find a job. Despite sending out hundreds of resumes for the first few months, I finally worked as a security guard for six months for minimum wage, then landed a gopher job in a company where I was more educated than the bosses I put stamps on envelopes for and got coffee for. It took 2 years before I landed something in media, which was my goal but they downsized after 6 months and I left the country a while later. While I was job hunting my recruiter had a Princeton grad on her roster who she could not get a job for and she told me potential employers thought he was junior as she put it. And didnt even want to meet him for an interview. And I met a guy working as a movie extra for 7 bucks an hour who couldn’t get a job despite a master’s from Harvard. My friend Shane worked on Bay street (Torontos Wall street) and No Harvard or Stanford MBA whom he worked with, had any advantage in his brokerage firm over Canadian BBA grads.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, when you leave the Northeast in our country or leave the country entirely, an Ivy education is just like any other, or maybe worth less because its not a regional degree. Should you not have gotten it? Of course not. You’re well prepared for a career, but the name (lack of ) recognition may slow things down a bit. Be patient and you’ll do fine.</p>
<p>From what I’ve heard, Harvard still carries prestige in Canada, regardless of your field of study and job prospects. Columbia, not so much.</p>
<p>Life is unpredicatable, and there are no absolutes or guarantees. </p>
<p>As I’ve said many times, a degree from an Ivy institution isn’t a free ticket to anything but a great education and the opening of many potential doors. It’s up to the individual to find their own way and make the most of those opportunities</p>
<p>You can do everything right and still fall flat on your face. That is life. Life ain’t fair. This is certainly a pessimistic view.</p>
<p>But I’m an optimist.</p>
<p>You can’t control what curves life throws at you, BUT you can do the best in your ability to prepare for those curves.</p>
<p>If you get a great education, it provides you with a strong foundation to help you meet those challenges.</p>
<p>You’ve got to have a gameplan though. If you want to be in movies and that’s all you want to do - then let’s be real - do you really need to go to an Ivy League institution? Hell no. You are far better off going to UCLA or USC or NYU.</p>
<p>Gotta have a gameplan.</p>
<p>Ivyleaguer, keep your head up. Network, network, network. If you haven’t already hook up with Columbia’s alumni network in Canada. Meet as many people as you can. Don’t be shy, don’t be too proud - leverage and take advantage of this resource.</p>
<p>What is your gameplan? Which field do you want to enter? What is your “selling angle”? </p>
<p>Feel free to PM me if you want to ask me any q’s.</p>
<p>Keep your head up.</p>
<p>The Ivy League (and indeed, any top university) will carry weight anywhere on the Globe, assuming you are dealing with well educated and cultured people. However, as Ivy Grad aptly points out, there are no guarantees. For every Ivy graduate who experiences what the OP goes through, there are several who meet with success. In the end, it is what we make of our education and to a degree, luck, that determines our success.</p>
<p>“assuming you are dealing with well educated and cultured people.”</p>
<p>Exactly. I don’t know what jobs you were hunting for, but the more prestigious the job, the more important it will be to have an education at a top school. Think about it: the less prestigious the job, the less likely your employer will have gone to a top school…and the less likely s/he is going to know of any American school outside of Harvard (and maybe a couple others). Even then, s/he may not recognize just how big of an accomplishment that is.</p>
<p>I doubt there are two people in a hundred in my town (the state capital) who know what or where Dartmouth is, and if you say Brown they think you meant UPS. And because the very few students who leave for HYPS never come back, they have no track record in employment, and no networking possibilities.</p>
<p>Now BYU will definitely get you somewhere (and this is a VERY liberal town.)</p>
<p>I already have a great paying job. But as I said I left the country to get it. and I spend a quarter of year travelling for fun. I can’t complain. Perhaps education doesn’t matter much in Canada. my friend has a master’s from a Canadian university and he is meat clerk.</p>
<p>Blobof wrote: From what I’ve heard, Harvard still carries prestige in Canada, regardless of your field of study and job prospects. Columbia, not so much .</p>
<p>Then how do you explain the Princeton grad whom my recruiter couldn’t get a job for and Harvard grad working as a movie extra? I worked as a reporter for a major newspaper just before I left Toronto. One of stories I covered was for a Canadians joining the new brain drain NOT the US but the Middle East. The sources in my story said no matter where you went to school it didn’t matter. A university of Windsor grad was generally held up to the same expectations as a Harvard grad, factoring in same level of work experience it came down to the interview and right fit at the job. Anyway, once I wrote the story I joined up with the foreign recruiters and left for the Middle East, especially after hearing how much money my sources from my stories were making. LOL </p>
<p>I noticed Alexandre is from the Middle East or is at least living there. or are you orginally from the UAE? Many of my friends back home are aiming for the UAE or Kuwait as well. Btw, my friend Shane is shooting a documentary about how education in Canada matters very little and the high amount of highly educated underpaid types in the country with high student loans.</p>
<p>Wow, if what iveleaguer said was true, then what is my point of trying so hard to get into a top U.S. university?</p>
<p>I think you are right to some extent. However, I think employers do look for people who had a good education. I think anyone with a tee-bit of knowledge will know what an accomplishment it is to get into HPYS. Columbia, however, probably isn’t as well-known. But then again, it depends on your major.</p>
<p>If you don’t mind me asking, what was your major at Columbia?</p>
<p>I mean, if someone majored in agricultrure or what-not, and this said someone goes to apply for a job at a farm, of course this someone will not get the job if he/she graduated from HPYS because the employer will just think that you are going to be too arrogant to really accomplish anything.</p>
<p>Also, I heard that people graduated from HPYS will usually ask for a VERY high salary (considering their huge accomplishments) and employers don’t like that. Some are also very un-cooperative with other co-workers b/c they think they are somehow superior than others. </p>
<p>Someone who graduated from a local university/college, however, doens’t have these problems (not in all cases of course, just generally). Therefore, prospective employers will hire these people. They might not have a very good credential but can the do the job as well as a graduate from HPYS? Probably yes.</p>
<p>Therefore, it is not surprising that graduates from HPYS cannot find suitable jobs in Canada. But then again, if these said graduates doesn’t seem all that arrogant, there is still fairly a good chance that they will be employed at a coporation of their choice.</p>
<p>I think you’re all overlooking the obvious. I think it’s well known in Canada that Columbia has a crappy hockey team.</p>
<p>ahhahaahah, that is hilariouss</p>
<p>those canadians are prob familiar w Cornell hockey, b/c they are cornell hockey</p>
<p>Ah, bball87, I hope you have a designated driver tonight. Taxi!</p>
<p>Kind of strange that everyone keeps reading about Columbia and skipping over the fact that people I know from Harvard and Princeton are also struggling in Canada. Btw, I went to Columbia Journalism School but could not get a job in media for close to 3 years after graduating. And yes, that school is quite well known in Canada as is the university as a whole.</p>
<p>Also, certain industries are more Ivy grad friendly. Mckinsey almost exclusively recruits from the top schools, but a Harvard MBA still has to start in the mailroom to make it in a hollywood agency. Media is less Ivy friendly (I am an Ivy undergrad and grad working in media), but once you get the job you tend to fly much faster. I was instantly branded as the “Columbia MBA” and I am hobnobbing with the top 3 execs at my company. Within a couple weeks I didn’t even need to get approval for MAJOR projects. I experienced the same thing at my previous job in television, when people found out I was from an Ivy I got instant recognition as “the smart kid.” Also the leadership of the company, many of which also had Ivy or top school degrees, singled me out as part of their ‘network’ and I was able to have a profound effect on a major company as a person under 26.</p>
<p>Ivyleaguer: As pointed out by others, prestige is one thing, but it’s no guarantee you’ll get a job just because you went to an Ivy League school. I was merely pointing out the fact that most canadians only know a small subset of the Ivies by name (not that many people have heard of Dartmouth, for example).</p>
<p>ivyleaguer: Perhaps education doesn’t matter much in Canada. </p>
<p>Are you serious?</p>
<p>I’m an American who did an M.A. at U of Toronto. A prof (who was originally from France) pulled me aside one day and told me that no matter how nice they seem, a lot of Canadians really hate Americans. And indeed I found many Canadians had no shortage of hate/envy/distrust of Americans.</p>
<p>Perhaps the Canadian employers view Canadians who went Ivy as social climbers who turned their backs on their country, and they are making you pay for it. I doubt if Canadians who go to Oxford or Cambridge and then return to Canada face any resentment at all.</p>
<p>Tourguide you may have a point. Dinostars, let me rephrase. Canada has a highly accessible post secondary education system. So it feels like everyone has a degree. So it’s like employers see a degree and aren’t really concerned where it’s from. I think it’s going come down to experience and the right fit. For sure though I think the Ivies carry less wow factor in Canada than the US and open less doors.</p>
<p>I guy I used to work out with went to Canada for undergrad, then Columbia for his MBA. Then when he came back, couldnt get a job for beans. Ended up working for customs. Then he went to a high ranking buddy who looked at his resume and told him that he was simply overqualified.</p>