@PurpleTitan, wow, how did you guess that I was considering Waterloo? I agree that it’s definitely more flexible than programs in say, England, but compared to Yale, it definitely is a lot more rigid. I’m not too familiar with public research universities in the US, but it makes sense that it’s harder to foster a sense of community in a university so large.
I’m actually looking into biomedical engineering at the moment, so the fact that there are fully-funded engineering PhD programs is definitely a good thing!