I finished at UBC about 4 years ago. I had a great experience. Its a beautiful campus, the building is an old Modernist treasure. The art department share the lecture halls on the first floor, then the second floor was class rooms with the third floor as studio space. The basement had a shop room and little wee reading room. It felt pretty intimate - you could talk with the faculty very easily, and on the most part they were quite intelligent and helpfull. It was tough and I'm still emotionally scared from the experience, occationally having nightmares about thesis. But I think that's pretty much the same from any arch program. HA.

I'm still in Vancouver, and I don't see myself going anywhere very soon. So, all in all I would recommend it.

Okay I graduated about 20 yrs ago and I thought it was a good experience then too. They definitely hang you out to flounder a bit, which I think is good but certain profs tended to have their own sensibilities which you picked up on but it was important to not be a clone of them. It was good to be able to pick out the good bits and discard the things you felt weren't for you. Not sure if its still that way but we had some good guest profs ( patkaus, cardew etc. ) who I believe are still around and still doing great work. Since my time they have brought the Landscape Architecture and Environmental design programs into the fold and just announced a new Director in Ray Cole. If your into Green building and sustainability issues( which everone these days needs to be ) there isn't anybody around who is as tapped into the reality of green building than he is, great prof. entertaining and approachable.

I would have to expect that the school has only gotten better since my time, Its never going to be compared with the big schools its too far out into the woods, literally but does a modern take on regiionalism very well.