Dr Lily Yen
	Mathematics Education Consultant

For high school students and their parents:

Which University is best for your child after high school?

A talk to compare

1. U.S. universities and Canadian/European universities,
2. large BC universities and Ontario/Quebec universities,
3. large BC universities and community colleges and universities;

and to discuss ranking websites and survey results and what the numbers mean.

Introduction

Dr. Lily Yen arrived in Vancouver from Taiwan at age fourteen, speaking barely any English. Placed in grade nine, and behind in all academic subjects except mathematics, she was encouraged by her teachers to join Waterloo Math Contests (now, Canadian Mathematics Competition). In grade eleven, she was the provincial champion for Fermat, and was invited to attend Waterloo Seminar at the University of Waterloo for a week. The following year, she was selected as the first female member of the Canadian Math Olympiad team of six to represent Canada in, then, Czechoslovakia.

During her SFU years, after much exploration in different disciplines like languages (German and French), kinesiology and biochemistry (pre-med), economics and accounting (business), her passion in mathematics prevailed, leading her to a graduate program in mathematics at the University of Pennsylvania. Following her PhD, she became a post doctoral fellow at the University of Waterloo where she taught mathematics and did research in the Department of Combinatorics and Optimization. The birth of her first child brought her family back to Burnaby where her parents provided child care to allow Dr. Yen and her husband, Dr. Hansen to start a tutoring centre.

In addition to teaching all levels of mathematics from grade four to university, she has been a part-time faculty at Capilano University for the last twenty years. Other than teaching, Dr. Yen was invited by the Canadian Math Society to join the coaching faculty for the Canadian Math Olympiad team a few times, and was invited to Waterloo Seminar to lecture to senior contest winners and Ontario teachers.

Over the last twenty-four years from advising students and parents on university choices, Dr. Yen realizes that information overload from websites and survey results cannot provide a complete picture regarding university choices—only when one speaks with those who work at universities can one really get a complete picture. Having taught at four universities, Dr. Yen looks forward to sharing her experience with students and their parents regarding their university choices.