TakeruK

I third fuzzy's statement! This may be a very blunt/harsh thing to say, but it was a driving factor in my decision to go to grad school: I only applied to grad school with full funding packages because if I was not good enough to get a fully funded package at the beginning of grad school, how could I ever catch up to the rest of the field (in terms of competitiveness) when it comes to finding a good job with my degree at the end of grad school? The competition level will only get higher from here on out.

I think B would be good, especially since it's run by those who were in your shoes just a few years ago. C is also important if you don't know how to secure funding but if you already have a NSERC, OGS, SSHRC, etc. then you can probably skip it. A is also great too. D sounds like a good topic but I'm not sure how it will be presented -- I've attended these workshops at two different schools now and sometimes they are very useful and others they are just restatements of common sense. At one school, the "TA responsibilities" workshop was really just the Vice Provost reading out the University's policies to us, paragraph by paragraph for about 70 minutes. The campus tour could also be a fun way to talk to your fellow students and walking around might break up the long orientation day. Also, you can learn tons of cool facts about the campus that you can use when giving a campus tour of your own when your friends, family etc. visit you at some point. I would pick: Only 1 out of B or D -- they seem to cover the same ideas, and personally, I would rather hear it from fellow grad students! A is a great choice. Then I guess you should pick between C or campus tour, depending on your current knowledge of funding.

I guess I should clarify that our stuff did not cross the border the same time as we did -- we flew to our destination while the stuff was shipped on a truck by a shipping company. So, I felt that we had to be more explicit in the list because I would not be able to be physically present to answer any questions or fill out additional pages of materials etc. -- I figured that it was worth the few hours to put together the giant list since the paperwork said that if someone at the border didn't like my list, they would either send it back or divert it to a customs bonded warehouse near my final destination (and pay additional charges). I don't know if the agent that inspected the shipping truck even looked at list, but the shipping company also makes sure that we have the right paperwork since they don't want to have to be stuck at the border with our stuff that they can't take across!

Another way to look at it, if you don't want to assume that every candidate is equally qualified, is that a 1% chance is similar to saying that you have to be in the top 1% of all graduating students in your year. Sounds incredibly difficult to me! It would be impossible, I think, to quantify what constitutes the top "1%" though and it might be hard to compare yourself to all the other students in your field in the world/US!

Also in a different field and here are my thoughts: 1. To answer your question, I think advice from the advisor during the process of producing a thesis is both part of their job and grounds for including them as coauthors. Many schools actually have a general written policy regarding this that can be superceded by any more specific agreement between advisor and student. I would say that it's the norm in my field to expect student and advisor to publish the thesis work together. For side projects, which are common here too, the expected outcomes (papers etc.) are usually stated at the start of the project. For larger collaboration across many schools, there is sometimes an agreement to be signed by all members that clearly states the publication policies. 2. In my field, I think it would be bad form for an advisor to use data / write a paper that undermines even just a small part of your student's work without informing the student beforehand. For example, the prof usually is the one to apply for time on a telescope to collect data but the student is often the one who collects and reduces/analyse the data. Sometimes the student's name is on the proposal but other times, the proposal might have been written before the student joined the project. In this case, technically the prof "owns" the data since they wrote the proposal, got the funding/time etc. So I think this is a similar situation to you. When my supervisor wanted to write up a portion of the data into a paper with another prof (because this small portion is very interesting and they didn't want to wait until the full sample was analysed), they asked me for permission first (although I think this was just to be polite -- they didn't have to!) and let me know why they wanted to write this paper sooner and addressed any concerns I might have had about it potentially undermining my future, fuller, paper. 3. In my field I would also include both advisors on the paper. You would definitely include Advisor 1, since it was their project -- i.e. their samples, their funding, and their reputation/history/experience that got them the funding for the project in the first place. Again, comparing to my experience, when I write up my project mentioned above and when I present it at conferences, I will end up including every person on the original proposal as a co-author, even though the project has multiple components and I did not talk to some of the proposal writers at all about my part of the project. But, since I am using the data from that proposal, everyone involved in "earning" that data should be included on the paper. So, I don't think your advisors are doing anything that is technically wrong. In my field, their behaviour would not be that rare, but definitely frowned upon and I think it's valid to feel unhappy about the situation. In my experience, most of my advisors have always tried to put their students' best interests first and if they wanted to publish something that might affect my future work, they would probably try to include me in that work.

I actually have not lived in Vancouver for the past 3 years now (but I did live there for about 20 years before moving away for grad school!). I did hear my family talk about all the warm weather and when I visited for ~10 days in June, it only rained on the last day!!

I based this statement on a few things. First, there is the worldwide university rankings. For example: http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/world-university-rankings/2012-13/world-ranking http://www.shanghairanking.com/FieldSCI2013.html http://www.usnews.com/education/worlds-best-universities-rankings/top-400-universities-in-the-world The top Canadian schools (Toronto, McGill, UBC) generally rank in the 20s or 30s worldwide, which I would call "second tier". I don't mean "second tier" with the same negative connotation as an expression like "second class citizen", but I use "second tier" to mean highly ranked/regarded (relative to universities worldwide) but not the best of the best. I know that these rankings are not specific to graduate programs and rankings don't mean a whole lot. However, the OP did ask about "big name" schools, implying that he/she is considering the reputation of the school to people outside of academia as well. General rankings are also not great because of specific programs at certain schools might be very good (see posts above). I'm mostly making this statement based on the physical science programs at Canadian schools. Secondly, there aren't highly funded (i.e. privately funded) research programs in Canada that is comparable to e.g. Harvard, MIT, etc. I've seen a huge difference between the resources available to graduate students at a Canadian school vs. a privately funded US school. Money may not be everything, but resources will attract top researchers and limited funding may mean limited outcomes. I think the top US schools are able to be so productive (in terms of research) simply because they have the resources to do so. I think the difference availability of resources is also linked to the sizes of the research communities in Canada vs. the US (about a factor of 10 in astronomy, just like our relative populations), so it makes sense to me, that it would be very hard for Canadian schools to compete with the top schools in the US. Overall, while some specific programs in Canada may be world leaders and equivalent or maybe even better than their counterparts in the US, I think it's generally true that the best Canadian programs are not in the same league as the top tier US programs. I know this is just a generalization but it's a good approximation, in my opinion.

Yep, Vancouver is basically very similar weather throughout the whole year. There may be a couple of weeks that are really hot in the summer or a couple of really cold weeks in the winter, but it's nothing like the extreme differences on the east coast, for example. People who like variety/weather are usually disappointed with Vancouver's weather -- especially since the summer doesn't usually get warm enough for traditional summery activities such as beaches (other than maybe the one or two weekends that are very warm). It also often rains in the summer, as well as the other "seasons". But on the plus side, you never really get that cold! So, it sounds like Vancouver weather will have what you're looking for!

Yes, liquid soap, cosmetics, etc. are all okay to bring (at least, no one at the border contacted us about it and we clearly listed it on our manifest). We ended up with a box of 100s of liquid detergent samples (don't ask how!) and we even brought that along with us without problems! I remember reading that the definition of household/personal goods is things that were used by you and will be used by you, in your home. So not things that you plan to bring to the US to resell to others. I also remember reading that you are supposed to have owned the item for at least 1 year prior to moving, but again, that is something pretty difficult to check. I get the sense that the NAFTA import/export laws are to ensure that people like us are able to move our belongings without paying duties while preventing people from illegally importing mass amounts of goods to sell in the other country. So, maybe they might be suspicious if you had something like 100 iPods listed on your manifest....

When I took combined courses, grad students just got the day off if there was an in-class test. Often, the exams would be during finals period, so grad students just won't have an exam scheduled. In many classes where the grad students have a final term project instead of an exam, they would also present it during the last week of classes, sometimes a 20-30 minute presentation / short lecture if time allows, so you might get your opportunity after all! Also, in the past year, there was one experience where the grad students had an oral final exam (10-15 minutes) while the undergrads had a 3 hour written exam. I was much happier with the oral exam, personally!

Combined courses are super common in my field. There are two types of combined courses -- 1) courses where the undergrad and grad versions are numbered differently but share some or all of the same lecture times and 2) courses that are either undergrad numbered or grad numbered but are open to enrollment for either graduate or undergraduate students. In case 1, it's usually the case that there will be different requirements for undergrad and grad students, and if transcripts report averages etc. then the two courses have independent averages. In my experience, the graduate course will have fewer exams (if any) and instead, there will be more term papers and research and projects. Sometimes the homework assignments for graduate students are completely different or there may be an extra question (or fewer questions). In case 2, then everyone should have exactly the same expectations since it is actually just one course, except with two types of students. Many schools will limit the number of undergrad courses that a graduate student may count towards their degree so in many cases, grad students only take undergrad course if they were missing it in their undergrad education and need it for research or pre-req. Some schools limit the number of graduate courses that an undergrad may take too, but I think that's silly! Overall, I don't think there is any real disadvantage/advantage to the combined courses. They're a little different, but not incredibly so. Also, I feel that a 4th year undergrad student isn't that far removed from a first year grad student! At my current school though, I do see a huge difference in the mentality of the more junior undergrad students (some grad courses here are open to 2nd and 3rd year students) and the graduate students! For example, the undergrads here tend to care a lot more about classes/grades and wanted tutorials to happen on weekend evenings while grad students wanted to keep it during "working hours". Even so, I have not and would not ever factor in the fact that it's a combined/cross-listed course when choosing my classes.

I think this should be okay. 3 withdrawals in one quarter is actually better than 3 withdrawals over 3 quarters. The former suggests that a one-time event happened in that quarter that caused you to drop your classes. The latter suggests a pattern of over committing or backing out of prior commitments. If you think it's relevant, you can address the reason for the withdrawals in the SOP but you might not even have to. It's not like they are going to see the 3 W's and put you in the reject pile automatically! Definitely still worth it to apply.

I'd assume that because of NAFTA, this is very similar to the list I had to make going from Canada to the US. The instructions I got said that it's okay to say "30 knives, 30 forks, 30 spoons", instead of listing each spoon individually. However, we should not say "90 eating utensils" or "50 clothing articles". We shipped our stuff in a U-Haul box that customs did not open at all. I think the list of items is mostly a formality -- due to NAFTA, we do not have to pay duties on personal items that we move with us from Canada to US or vice versa. But they probably want a record of everything and there are probably random spot checks where they would open up the "lucky" container and cross check items with the packed list. In the end, I would advise to take the time to count # of shirts etc. and do the list since getting a fine is no fun. Also, it was kind of interesting / educational to truly list out every item we owned (it also helped us realise that we had a ton of stuff that we didn't need to move with us). But, I would not take the effort to write detailed descriptions -- be as vague as possible so that you can lump things into the same category (e.g. no need to distinguish blue t-shirts vs. green t-shirts, or salad forks vs. dinner forks). Also, just wildly guess at the dollar value. For example, I just counted up all my books, assigned them all a value of $5, did a multiplication and wrote down the number, instead of adding up all of the price tags on the barcodes etc. Same with shirts etc. Again, we aren't paying duties so the dollar value isn't super important. We kept track of what went into each box (helpful for unpacking too) and when we were all done, I consolidated all the individual lists into a giant 13 page document for the border agents. Labelling each box was something we would have done anyways, so the only "extra" time was making the master list, which I estimated to take about 2-3 hours.

GeoDUDE answered the question well with equations. I'll supplement the above explanation with some additional words. A function is a mathematical construct where you put in some inputs and get an output. There are two types of functions: scalar functions and vector functions. With a scalar function, you get a scalar value out. Position is a vector function, so like GeoDUDE says, the output is a vector, not a scalar (the "input" for the position vector function is usually the time). When you take the first derivative of a vector function, you get another vector function, in this case, the velocity vector function.

I think this might also depend on the field. In STEM fields, I get the sense that SOPs are read for content, not style/structure, so you don't really have to worry about writing your SOP in the "academic writing style". So small differences like "I'm" vs "I am" or inconsistently using American English vs. Canadian/British English spelling would have almost no effect in a science program, in my opinion. Basically, I am saying that I think in the sciences, the committee is not going to read the SOP the way your first year English prof/TA would read your essays. It would be very terrible if your grammar or spelling hindered the reader's understanding, and it wouldn't be great if the reader was able to notice many spelling/grammar errors without checking for these errors. But, the odd typo here and there should not be a big deal. I know someone at my current top tier science school that included photographs and fancy fonts/formatting etc. in their SOP. I would not recommend straying from the status quo though, since there is not much to be gained and it's still a bit risky. I'm not sure if the OP's program would be considered "sciencey" or not, since it's a very interesting mixture! But in any case, I think this might be good to keep in mind for those reading this thread that are in the sciences. For what it's worth, I wrote my SOP in the same tone as if I was sitting in front of a member of my committee and they asked me "Tell me about your experience" but with an increased amount of formality that comes naturally when you write stuff down instead of speaking it. I definitely did not edit it as much as I would have edited a final term paper for a course or a submission to a journal though. I mostly edited to make sure the information/content I wanted to convey was effectively communicated -- I was not concerned with demonstrating the extent of my writing ability.

The first semester sounds manageable. Busy, but doable. I find that it's usually a good thing if your supervisor is your TA employer, because then they will understand and see all the work you have to do! I'm not 100% sure if UVic works the same way, but at all other schools, the TAs are unionized and every hour spent working is counted towards your contract (i.e 135hrs/semester or whatever it is for that particular course). At Queen's, the TA contract requires the TA and the prof to sit down at the beginning of the semester and budget the TA's hours in a way agreeable to both (but the employer has the final say of course). So, if the prof wanted the TA to sit in on the lectures (or, in your case, take a supplementary course), then these count as working hours against your TA contract. This would greatly reduce the amount of TA hours the prof has left to "spend" on things like grading, preparing for discussion sections, leading discussion sections, so at Queen's, very few TAs end up attending lectures since there just isn't enough resources. Even if UVic doesn't do this, I would recommend sitting down with your prof at the beginning of the semester and discussing how the prof expects you to spend your 135 hours that semester. You should also make a contingency plan, like what to do if grading takes longer than expected. It would be helpful to log your own hours and then re-evaluate your "TA hours budget" at the midterm to ensure you don't run out of hours before the end of the semester. For example, if you find that you've already spent 70% of your grading hours by the middle of the semester, then maybe at the midterm meeting, the prof might decide to reduce the amount of assignments, or reduce the length of assignments, or tell you to spend less time grading. I'm a big supporter of putting in the effort to ensure a great education for my students, and I put 100% effort into every hour that I was contracted to work (with about 10% leeway) but I also think that our time as grad students/TAs is a commodity and the school/department/prof should respect that (instead of expecting us to spend as much time/effort as we can). Sometimes, to keep the workload manageable, I had to grade writing with only a number at the end or a few marks here and there. This was something I hated to receive as a student, but it was the best I could do with the limited hours. I taught a lab course, so luckily, students could find me during the lab session or during office hours if they had further questions. Anyways, the bottom line is that I think you will have enough time for everything as long as you budget your time and plan ahead how many hours to spend each week on TA work, on your courses, on your research, and on supervising your student. I think it's important to remember that grades in grad school do not really matter and it's easy to accidentally spend way more time than necessary! At first I was spending as much time as I did on courses in undergrad (5 courses!) but then soon realised this was way too much time to spend on only 1-2 courses. Eventually, I tried to average it out to something like 10 hours/week per course. Good luck!

How many hours are your TAships? In my old Canadian MSc program, the standard TA load was 2 courses per semester, and 2 semesters per year. But, each course was only 4.5 hours of TA work, so this was only 9 hours per week. Usually, they would try to assign it so that a TA would teach 2 lab sections of the same course or something, so that they get the most out of the 9 hours (the prep work would be shared!). I did have this load for one semester, and I found it to be manageable although 9 hours per week was just at the boundary where I actually felt my TA work was hindering my ability to do research (and fulfill the obligations of my RAship) and my coursework. In general, in Canada, I would think that something like 12 hours per week would be the maximum recommended TA load for someone who has other funding sources (and thus obligations). This number is coming from a science viewpoint, where we are mostly funded through RAships instead of TAships. I know that my friends in the humanities/social sciences in Canada would often not have any other funding and would spend a much larger amount of time working as a TA, though.

I would be worried because of the risk of theft. It's pretty unlikely that anyone like an officemate or a colleague down the hall would steal your machine, but thieves often know that university campuses are great places to steal technology and electronics! Overall, I would say Victoria, BC is a pretty safe place but theft can still happen! I have seen several reports at my current and former schools where theft has happened and it always comes with a reminder to keep our office doors locked! I guess it would depend on the setup of your building. Currently, my office is on the ground floor and the building doors automatically unlock every morning at 7am. My office door has its own lock, but students (including myself) often are lazy and we don't always close our door even if we are the last one to leave, especially if it's just to grab a coffee down the hall or go to the washroom (and then we might run into a friend or prof, and stop to chat etc.). Also, sometimes the doors to academic buildings aren't the most secure and people can break into them overnight. And, a lot of times key distribution is not tightly controlled -- it's really not certain who actually has the keys to your building, and even your office door. For example, my office key can open every office door on my floor, including the prof's offices. Again, it's unlikely anyone in your building would steal from you, but what if someone stole the key from them, or they misplaced a key etc. Another reason I would worry is damage due to flooding, fire, earthquakes, etc. The University likely has insurance coverage for all these things (and theft too) but it probably only covers their own property, not yours. I know my renters insurance policy will cover any sort of damage/theft to my own belongings in my apartment/car, but I'm not certain it will cover things left in my office! I generally do treat my office like my second home (sometimes I even try to use my home key to open my office door), and I do leave a lot of my belongings at my desk. But these items are things like an external hard drive, coffee mugs, books, pens etc. Maybe the combined value (especially the books) would be several hundred dollars, but a $2000 (or is it more?) iMac would be too valuable for me to risk!

Are you planning to do most of your work in the office? Personally, I do 90% of my work in the office and I like using giant screen there and just keeping a small and lightweight laptop for traveling. However, I would be wary of buying such an expensive machine and putting it in the office instead of, e.g. my home. Unless you mean a home office, then that would be different! But having such a beautiful work machine at home would make me want to stay home all day which would probably be bad for my productivity!

Okay, here are my thoughts on the rest of your questions! For context, here is some history of when I applied for NSERC awards. In Fall 2009, as an undergrad in my last year at UBC, I applied for a NSERC CGS-M to use at a Canadian school. Then, two years later, in Fall 2011, as a grad student in my last year of my MSc at Queen's, I applied for a NSERC CGS-D. I ended up going to a US school, so, as required, I declined the CGS-D and accepted the PGS-D instead. Also, I guess I misread something in an earlier post. To clarify, since you are current undergrad student, you won't be eligible to apply for the PGS-D award until you are in the fall of your first year of your direct-entry PhD program (if you go that route). So, you should apply for the -M award, if I interpreted your link to the NSERC website correctly! So, yes, you do apply through your current undergrad university. You generally always apply to the school you are currently registered at, at time of application, no matter where you intend to take up your award. If you are not currently at a Canadian university, then you would apply directly to NSERC. But in the same page you linked, there is a table that details all possible scenarios (a recent graduate at a Canadian university but not a current degree student elsewhere would apply through their previous university). As for resources and help, like I said in my short answer, this really depends on your school and department -- at some places, they really try to help undergrads out, at others, it's basically completely up to the student. Some resources you can check are your grad school financial office or any student organization (e.g. the science undergrad society, or your major's student club). I'll be glad to answer any questions too. Note: You should check with your school about the deadlines. They can vary greatly between programs -- at UBC, it was mid-September, at Queen's, it was some time in October!! I think in the past year (starting with the 2012 applications, the dates/rules changed a little bit). But if the deadline is mid-September, you should start putting together your package now, especially lining up your letter writers. In both 2009 and 2011, I had no idea where I would end up doing my Masters or PhD since the NSERC deadline was months before I even applied to grad schools. My Masters program ended up not being rotation based, and my current PhD program involves two simultaneous research projects in the first year. So far, I just arbitrarily chose one of my supervisor to be the "on paper" NSERC supervisor. But that's something you don't really have to worry about until after the school/award decisions are made! As for writing the research proposal for the application, remember that you are not committing yourself to actually carrying out this project if you are funded. It is mostly an example of what kind of work you would do and especially for the -M level award, they mostly want to see that you are able to clearly articulate and plan a project that is both scientifically interesting and doable in the few years that you have. So, my approach was to find a prof that would do research similar to what I would do in grad school (e.g. a prof at a school I would apply to), tell them that I was going to apply for NSERC, remind them that there's no commitment, and ask if they have 30 minutes or so to discuss some of my project ideas. I found that feedback from a prof even in just 30 minutes of talking was immensely helpful in making sure I didn't overlook any glaring flaws and also they are helpful at gauging if the project is too vague, too detailed, too broad, or too narrow. My friends and I also traded writeups with each other to help each other perfect things. Also remember that you are allowed to change your project and supervisor during the award. You would have to submit a new description so that they are aware of the change. In general, as long as you stay within the same NSERC evaluation "Committee" then it's okay. For example, my application was evaluated by "Physics & Astronomy", so as long as I stayed in that description, it should be okay. I have not actually submitted a project change yet though, but I think my eventual PhD project will be different enough from my application that I will do that along with my request for the next installment this fall. In both MSc and PhD programs, I had NSERC funding entering the first year of that program (so I applied in the last year of the previous program in both cases). But as you mentioned in the post above, and also on the NSERC webpage, you are still eligible to apply as late as your second or third year of your PhD program depending on whether it was Masters-to-PhD or direct-entry. (If you apply later, you might only get the 2-year award instead of the 3 year award though). Yes, in many applications, they will ask if you have applied for any awards. In my application years, I found out by late November/early December whether or not my application (to the school) was forwarded to NSERC (i.e. made the first cut). So, you would probably have that info by the time you submit most of the applications, so that is something definitely worth mentioning! In Canada, all programs should immediately know what you mean and they will probably look at your application and have a good guess at whether or not you'll be funded based on previous experience. If they think you will be successful, it might really help your chances at admission since you'll be bringing in a considerable amount of outside funding.\ For US schools, they might not know what you mean. When I applied, I just quoted the PGS level award amount (21,000 CAD/year for up to 3 years) so that they can gauge the level of the award. If you are talking to someone, you can refer to it as Canada's version of the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program, except our NSERC PGS-D won't be covering as much costs since we are taking it outside of Canada. But that's a good reference baseline in terms of the prestige and value of the award. The most important thing is to make sure you spend time to put together a quality application package. I would start about now! Some of my letter writers wanted to see my completed application package before they would write the letters, so don't expect to be able to finish it at the last minute. You should probably ask your previous supervisors about getting letters ASAP and then provide them with your info when you have it ready. But give them the heads up soon (unless the deadline for your school is really late!) On the NSERC page, they tell you what's important to them. At the -M level, the breakdown is 50% grades, 30% research potential and 20% community involvement. At the -D level, it's 50% research ability/potential, 30% grades, and 20% community involvement. Other than having a high GPA, the other important things to have is to get all 3 letters from previous research supervisors if possible (especially when applying for the -D level). Previous publications and/or NSERC awards (e.g. USRA or the -M award) is very valuable. Your research statement is important as well, but remember it's non-binding -- the goal is to prove to the committee that you are capable of performing research at the level expected. Finally, keep in mind that your job is to basically convince the committee that Canadians (taxpayers) should invest somewhere between 60,000 to 100,000 on you and get their money's worth. At the undergrad level, scholarships are meant to reward previous success and attract these great students to the school. I think at the graduate level, while that aspect is still present, I think it's more helpful to view the award as an investment for the best young minds. You have to do more than just show that you have been a good student -- you want to them to feel confident that spending this money on you will be worthwhile in the end. Like everything else in academia, I think there are going to be way more candidates that are "deserving" or "qualified" than there are resources (awards) available, so it's important to keep in mind that you will have to do more than just show NSERC that you meet their criteria for awards. That said, being overly competitive can be a big problem in academia, so while you are directly competing with your classmates (and maybe friends too), I think the honourable thing to do is to help your friends/peers succeed with you instead of actively or inactively trying to get yours to be better than the others. That was my philosophy anyways -- a lot of us applied together and we all worked/proof-read/gave tips to make sure each of us submitted the best application possible and let the University/NSERC decide what happened next. Hope that was helpful -- and I'll be glad to answer any other questions about NSERC applications or applying to US schools from Canada!

I think it's worth including them but don't expect them to count for very much.

Hi stresshair, Yes you are right -- you can apply for and get a PGS-D directly. But then you will only get the PGS-D for 3 years. If you apply for the PGS-M first, get that, then apply for and win the PGS-D the following year, then you would have gotten the PGS-M for 1 year and then the PGS-D for 3 years (i.e. more awards/money). To answer your other questions: 1. Yes, you apply through your current school's university. Contact the Graduate School's finance office for help, but at many schools you are kind of left on your own!! There may be some workshops though, or senior students / grad students. .. I'll answer the rest of questions when I get back from a weekend trip (or maybe someone else will answer it first!)

In Canada, you will be provided with the textbook. If you have to buy anything, make sure you get it reimbursed through your course's budget. It might depend on the department, but I will be very surprised if TAs in Canada ever have to pay for anything related to their work as a TA (including their time being trained). I TA'ed for 2 years in Canada and "consumable materials", such as lab notebooks were provided for me when I went to the science stores and textbooks or other reference materials were loaned to me by the prof (he ordered enough copies for himself and all the TAs).

Like sdt13 said, almost all PhD programs will fund you if they accept you! Especially in the sciences. Sometimes this funding is quite low and you would want to supplement it. However, the way funding works is that if you have external sources, then often the internal sources are adjusted so that your take-home pay would be about the same. The rare exception is when your external funding is something that will completely cover your stipend and tuition! But this is definitely not the case with NSERC. You can only take the PGS level award to foreign schools and the PGS-D is 21,000 CAD per year, which is not enough to cover most of the cost! However, it's still better to apply for it and try to secure your own funding. It helps you get more independence and having your own money might mean less cost to your supervisor, which means more money for them to spend on trips and/or equipment for you. It's also a good prestige thing. I am not certain, but I think you can apply for the PGS-D directly if you are going into a direct-entry PhD program (i.e. almost any program in the US) so that you don't have to have 1 year of Masters funding initially. However, this is in your best interest, because you have a lifetime limit of 4 years of graduate level NSERC funding, and the best way to use this limit is to have 1 year of PGS-M funding followed by 3 years of PGS-D funding. You cannot hold the PGS-D for more than 3 years. You can still apply for the PGS-D in your first year of your PhD program (for funding for years 2, 3, and 4). Unless you are talking about the "must complete at least 1 degree in Canada before taking an NSERC award abroad" requirement and you did not do your BSc in Canada. NSERC and Fulbright are really the only two major funding sources that would fund all of science. Maybe you can find a program that might fund your field specifically. For example, NASA has one fellowship program for the planetary sciences that I plan to apply to when my PGS-D runs out. I also looked all over when I made the decision to go to a US school and there really isn't anything else!

Actually, most STEM programs in Canada will only consider the "300" and "400" level (i.e. junior and senior) level courses in your GPA, no matter when you took them (so if you took advanced electromagnetism in your second year, it will still count towards your grad school GPA). Many, but not all, STEM programs will only count courses in the major field of study (e.g. for me, I only computed and reported my average grade for Physics, Math, and Astronomy courses). This allows us to take electives for fun without worrying about the consequences of a lower than average grade. Of course, you still need to do well in other areas, since the school will still see the entire transcript, but most published hard-cutoffs are given relative to your upper level major courses only.