<p>My 2 potential majors. How are these programs at McGill? My AP Chem teacher, I believe, went to McGill for her PhD so I just have in my head that it should be a great program. How do you think it would compare to schools such as UPenn, Columbia, CMU, or NYU?</p>
<p>Don’t know much about chemistry, but mathematics will prepare you well for grad school in pure math or stats, not as much in applied math (the department can’t seem to retain applied math people for some reason). My classmates had no problem getting into the best grad schools in math and stats. Those who did not go to grad school had no problems finding jobs with their math degrees.</p>
<p>Most of the McGill math professors are terrible at least in the lower level classes. If you are good at math, then calc1 and 2 will be fine, because everyone in science takes them, but going past them will be rough. I was originally planning to major in math. Many professors have really thick accents. None of the math professors I encountered seemed to care about their students. The averages on exams are low because they expect you to go above and beyond what they teach you. I hope that you come out of a school with a really tough math program. At McGill you will be expected to write proofs without ever really having the process or expectations explained to you. Assignments will expect you to just understand stuff that hasn’t been taught. It’s tough. I came out of high school with a 5 on ap calc and stats and a 780 on the math portion of the SAT, but I couldn’t compete at the level that McGill asked from me. But if you are used to the university style of teaching math (very sterile, no explaining, figure it out yourself) method then you can do fine here. Also if you are thinking about becoming an actuary, I don’t think you can take the actuarial science courses at McGill that you need. (My friend is looking into this. I’m not sure what the actual requirements are). </p>
<p>You might love it here, but I think there’s probably a better program somewhere else. I just wish someone had given me a warning.</p>
<p>Math programs at most Canadian universities are very challenging. McGill is not an exception. At most Canadian universities the failure/drop-out rate in first year calculus is almost always considerably higher than any other first-year class. At most Canadian universities the majority of the math profs and math grad students do not have English as their first language. </p>
<p>My son is taking two math courses at McGill this year and is enjoying them. They are challenging, but no more so than they would be at other decent schools.</p>