I would like to get our desi friends opinion regarding moving to hamilton.

My daughter would be joining mcmaster from sept 2012. I want her to go home to university.

what area of Hamilton is Ideal to stay for easy access.

I would like to have some desi community around us and what is best to buy condo or house.

Kindly post your opinion.

THank you


Prem

If she's in undergraduate it is probably best to live in residence first year. She'll have less responsibility this way since meals are provided in the cafs, they have healthy options (although lots of unhealthy options too!) and some south asian food.

Otherwise Westdale is a nice area near the school. It is made up primarily of single family homes. I wouldn't recommend buying one, just rent her an apartment or a room in one. A lot of these homes rent individual rooms to students only. You can find all girl housing etc. There is also a privately run apartment building on Main Street West that has condo style units for students. An Indian friend lives there. You can request an all girl suite but I don't think you can't request specific ethnicities of roommates http://www.westvillagesuites.ca/.

There are lots of south asian students at Mac. There are several different south asian student groups she can join. Let her be friends with who she wants though, university is a great time to meet new people and McMaster is very diverse. I find younger students stick to making friends from a similar background and older students (I'm in graduate studies in health sciences) make friends with people in the same program with similar professional interests or with other common interests etc.

Its close enough to Mississauga she could come home almost every weekend if she wanted to, although sometimes group work makes that difficult. The Go bus comes on campus and goes to the Aldershot Go station or to York University (with many stops).

It's a great school. Good luck to her.

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