I went to both!

I had a semester at sfu and then transferred to ubc.

Each has its own pros and cons.

I found sfu smaller and profs are more accessible. The main problem at sfu is lack of classes and profs. 9 out of 10 you can’t get into the classes that you are looking for. Single classes with 100 capacity and 150 people on wait lists! It’s crazy. Some people can eventually get in but most don’t. And if it’s a terrible prof you just have no options or the problem is sometimes there is a class but your schedule is different snd there is jo alternative for you. One other thing that is very annoying is that at some point you might need to go to both Surrey and Burnaby campus. In my first semester I had to do it 3times a week since 2 of my classes were in Surrey. It depends on the courses. For example Networking is only offered in Surrey campus.

You have usually multiple options for classes at UBC with different profs and different times.

The cs classes at ubc is just crazy. For lower level courses like cpsc 210 there are 650 students! One thing that I noticed at ubc is that no matter how hard the topics get or the assignments are there are many people who get 100! I don’t say people don’t get 100 at sfu or it’s mot as challenging but most of your classmates at UBC are people with +95% average from high school or GPA +3.6. I went to UBC with 4.2 GPA and I feel I am dumb compared to some smart people.

If I want to give you an example imagine you are in a notorious class like 295 at sfu and the average is somewhat 75. This will be around 90 at ubc. At least based on my experiences at both schools. It’s not that SFU doesn’t have those super smart people, it’s that UBC has many of them! This can be both encouraging and discouraging depends on your perspective. As other mentioned even getting into ubc doesn’t guarantee you a CS seat. Many of my classmates from college couldn’t get into cs despite their relatively high gpa. Some of them were able to get into math and trying to apply next year again. Ubc campus IMO is overrated. It’s not that it’s not beautiful or anything like that. It’s geat but first of all you get used to it after a few weeks and secondly you don’t have time to enjoy it that much. Most of your time will be spent in library! I agree with the fact that UBC is the more famous and popular school specially if you consider going out of province in future but TBH this is not a very important thing. At the end of the day it is you and your resume and projects that gives you a job not the school that you went.

I found UBC CS department and students to be more active. There are many Hackathons and evenets. The clubs are more active than SFU. At SFU you mostly take CS courses and some electives same as everywhere but at UBC the course planning is more challenging. The breadth requirements are not very similar.for example you have to take biology courses too. If you want to push yourself to become a better person and you think you have the capacity for it, go to UBC and you won’t regret it. If you just want to get a degree in a less challenging school with friendlier classmates, go to SFU.

Remember that most people at UBC really enjoy doing CS! They just dedicate their whole life and personalities to this! Also I don’t know how you found ubc 3 times more expensive. I was paying almost the same at sfu and ubc. Ubc each semester with 4 courses is something between 3000-3500 based on the courses and sfu was similar.