McGill - humanities and liberal arts?

kierans
Sun, 12 Sep 2010 06:31:27 +0000

Twenty five years ago I was an English major at a small, selective liberal arts college in the US. I spent my junior year at McGill as a “visiting student”.

Although I loved McGill and had a great time there, my experience was that the academic program for liberal arts majors at McGill was much inferior to the program at my home school. At McGill, the classes were large and I almost never talked to the professors, just the TAs who taught the section. I did have a couple of smaller classes (less than 30 students) and I remember one professor who was very good. For the most part, though, the professors did not seem to be very interested in undergraduate teaching. I remember one literature class in particular that was so boring. The teacher just droned on and on (NO class discussion at all!) for an hour and a half twice a week, watching the clock until he could stop. Almost all the students stopped coming to class and we just passed in our papers to get class credit. Also, the “arts students” were considered somewhat second class to the business and science students.

What struck me more than anything, though, was how much easier the academics were at McGill. I was there for two semesters and got an A in every single one of my (upper level) classes, and I would estimate that I put in 50-75% of the effort that I had been putting in at my US LAC. My friends who were in the science and business programs seemed to be working much harder, so I have to assume that those programs were more demanding.

On the other hand, at my US LAC, the classes were small and taught by professors who were, almost without exception, very interested in and commited to undergraduate teaching. Of course the quality of the classes varied and some professors were better than others, but I got much, much more attention and personal interaction with the faculty. I also had to work much, much harder to get good grades! Plus, English was one of the most popular majors at the school and was very well respected.

Of course, this all happened 25 years ago and the liberal arts program at McGill might be much improved now. And, as I said, I loved being at McGill. Montreal is a fascinating city and I made some wonderful friends. Based on my experience way back then, however, I would recommend that if you want a strong liberal arts program, you might want to think twice about whether McGill is the best choice.