Considering going to U of C

can't really help you with the school side of of things, but skiing i may be able to help.

thanks dude +k, if sunshine is that much closer i'll probably end up riding there more than louise. cop doesn't sound too much worse than my home mountain, so whatever.

oh yeah, what other mountains within 2 hours of calgary are comparable to sunshine/LL?

well there isn't really any to compare to within 2 hours, 3 hours out you got Fernie which is very dope! Castle Mountatin, Panorama, and a few others.

Point 1: Cop isn't always icy. I moved here last year for school (I'm at SAIT, finish this year). I was a little sceptical about it, but I love going there. A season pass is pretty cheap for students ($300). Fun park laps. Only thing I hate is the amount of disrespectful white suburban shits that are there. Oh well, they'll learn their lesson one day.

Point 2: Sunshine is an 1 and a half away, Lake Louise is two hours away, and Kicking Horse is 3. I ski at Kicking Horse as well (where my parents live). I don't really like Sunshine all that much, it doesn't really compare to Lake Louise or Kicking Horse.
Lake Louise would be your best "shred morning pow and steeps, afternoon park" hill. Really nice park set up, and amazing terrain (Check out the Whitehorn runs).

Point 3: I haven't lived in res at Uni, but my roommate has, maybe she'll see it and shed light on res.

Point 4: Asian invasion isn't as massive as Van. Plenty of young white chicks to get in on.

Point 5: Again, haven't really been to parties, I've heard they can be pretty fun. Thursday is student night(Thursden) at the bar on campus, which is really cheap, and if you like to dance and drink, really fun.

Point 6: Can't help you there.

Point 7: They do, from what I understand, the ski club is the "lets drink and do really shitty skiing", and the snowboard club is "yea man, lets go on roadtrips and shred and have fun, but not be wasted the whole time".
Join the snowboard club.

my friends and I.........

thanks a lot! do you think lake louise is worth the extra half hour? i snowboard anyway so that works out about the shitty ski club. can anyone tell me when COP usually opens for the season?

No, these kids tend to be groms.
I haven't seen you personally there, but you're what, 6'?

These kids are 5' and there voices haven't dropped.

Well worth it in my opinion. I might be a bit more biased to Lake Louise since I grew up there for 12 years, but I've just never been a Sunshine fan.
I've skied the shine twice in the past 9 years....So yea, those two days were because I won tickets at Freshtival.

Oh yea, check out Freshtival in October, best way to party with skiers before the season starts.

COP tends to open around mid November, it all depends on the weather and how much snow Calgary gets/COP is able to make. Mid April is when it closes.

Sunshine is open till mid May, and Louise is open to early May.
Both of those hills also tend to open early-mid November.

3. I've been in first year and upper year dorms on campus, they're nice! Bare bones, serviceable basically what you'd expect from dorms.

4. Despite the above, Calgary is still a verrrrry white city in my experience. That's not to say there aren't South Asian, South East Asian etc communities! But, really, the prairies are still pretty Caucasian.

5. The Den on campus is cheap and accessible! Despite not being the biggest city, there's also a really good number of clubs and venues downtown.

6. My Dad graduated in geophysics, my brother is in geology, and I'm in Ecology, though I was looking at earth sciences. It's certainly a strong area for the school, particularly if you're looking to get into the petroleum industry and so on. Maybe if you've got more specific questions you could pm me and I'll do my best to answer?

7. The ski club is much bigger and is sort of an institution the way I understand frats to be at US schools. There's great people involved with both clubs. Both clubs organize their fair share of parties and trips.

6" white saga pants, most likely with Canon 60D in my hands filming.

awesome, thanks again.

merci, sounds like i'll probably be taking a trip out there soon to get check it out.

I'll go into a bit more detail with your UofC questions as you're pretty well covered for the ski side of things. Although I will second Rudager's opinion that the extra drive to LL can be worth it.

If you don't have an awesome time in 1st year rez you're doing something wrong. When I lived in Rundle about two years ago they had just renovated so I had brand new furniture, carpets etc. Things have gotten a little beat up since but are still in pretty awesome condition (especially compared to the ~30 years w/o renos the place had seen prior to that). There's always something going on and people to hang out with. It's also great because you generally have a built in homework group, I never had to deal with my MasteringPhysics or calculus problems on my own. Be prepared to ski on minimal sleep because the noise and partying tended to continue to 4ish (this may vary depending who you live with). Similarly, be prepared for smashed televisions in the toilet, blood all over the bathroom etc. Although these are things to expect at any rez. They now force all the second year rez kids to live in Yamnuska. I haven't been in it, but I've heard there have been some glitches as its a new building. It also doesn't give you a full kitchen and is a lot more expensive than the other upper year options. Apartment style rez is pretty good, depending on your roommates (I had a couple of foreign ones one semester that were awful). Furniture is fine and the convenience is great but it's pretty pricey. I'm paying about half as much now that I'm off campus.

Calgary is pretty white as far as cities in Canada go. Living on campus is even more so as you get a lot of the small town kids. It definitely depends a bit on your major, but it's nothing like my high school where I would sometimes be the only white girl in my class. Can't speak for geophysics specifically but geology is pretty white so it may be similar? It's also super easy to find people who ski. First year I'd just ask random people if they skied/boarded and about 9x out of 10 they'd say yes (obviously most don't take it seriously but it's still great if you need to bum rides to the mountain).

Depends what you are looking for in the ski/snowboard club as to whether it's good. Ski club is the oldest and largest club on campus. If you want discounts to tons of bars and clubs around the city as well as the biggest campus parties you're in luck. Whether the people you meet there have ever actually been on a mountain is a different question. Snowboard club used to get you shop discounts at a few places (including Fresh despite it being a ski only store) but has been falling apart a bit so may not anymore. Both clubs have sample sales at the beginning of the year and get some awesome brands in (Voleurz, Vans etc). Both clubs also offer cool ski trips with copious amounts of free alcohol. They can be expensive but are a good experience and are great if you don't have a vehicle. (If you have a vehicle, bring it. The bus ride to COP is an hour long and the nearest pickup for the Sunshine bus requires an early morning C-train ride downtown. However expect to sell an arm and a leg to park it at school or find somewhere off campus to park it).

Bars are bars. Calgary has some awesome ones, as do most places I've been. Favourites among first year rez students are Jamiesons and Kilkennies as both are an easy walk from campus and have awesome deals on ribs/wings night. I had friends who used to go weekly as it was their primary source of protein. Thursden is great if you want a sloppy mess of a night where you don't have to worry about making it home. I don't tend to like clubs but Calgary seems to has a decent variety. Some are pretty guido and are best avoided, some have an older crowd, some are trashy, some are supposedly great for picking up cougars. To be honest, in first year you probably won't venture off campus too much and when you do you'll be in a big enough group that anywhere will be fun.

thanks guys, i'll definitely join the snowboard club. do you think it will be hard to find rides to cop? i highly doubt i will be bringing a car out

It all depends on when people go to COP, transit is 1 train stop away from the uni, then a 20 minute or so bus ride, I've done it before, it's alright.

make some friends, you'll be fine

haha i think i'll be fine for that, i never really have sacrificed school for partying. i guess if the bus is out of the question i'm just going to be looking for rides. i went to a u of c presentation the other day in van, they said they had a car rental system or something? has anyone done that? seems like a good way to get to bigger mountains on the weekend if a few people pitch in

Came in here to drop some mad university info only to realize everyone else already wrote you a paper on it. Oh well.

Never heard of the car rental thing. That being said, I'm not really up on the car rental scene here so it probably exists. UofC is cool like everyone said, even if you just came for bsd it would be worth it.

It's run through Hertz's car share program, I think it costs $60ish per day. There's two cars for it parked right outside Cascade Hall but I don't know anybody who's ever tried using it. On the plus side I've also never seen either of the cars in use so you should be able to get one of them whenever you want.

Here's the posters they had up:
http://www.ucalgary.ca/parking/files/parking/connectUniCalgary_5x7-2.pdf

Im from van like you and im almost done my first year so ill answer some of your questions about school and COP.

gonna bump this because i have no definite roommate yet. anyone looking for a roommate who's in first year get at me.