Originally Posted by Ownaginatios

McMaster is alright, but by no means would I consider it 'amazing'. It's pretty ordinary in most regards. Other than research, I can't really think of anything that McMaster does/has better than a lot of the other Canadian universities... other than that our tuition is a bit cheaper than average.

The only things I can really think of that differentiate McMaster are things that are worse about it, such as:

1. Mugsi/SOLAR. I've heard people ***** about U of T's ROSI system (which I've used and is pretty great). They didn't believe me when I explained SOLAR/MUGSI to them. It's also rare (from what I can tell) to have to fight extremely hard to get any decent electives at most other schools.

2. Our campus is not as nice as a lot of people seem to think it is. I was at Waterloo recently, and I have to say - it's waaaayyy better than ours. They don't have roads running all over the place, the fields don't flood for ~6 months of the year and they have a friggin' dinosaur museum on campus. Their new engineering building is also way cooler than ours, and can actually be used by most people in engineering (not just first years and B-Tech like ours).

3. We have the worst atmosphere ever. Seriously; if you want food at 3 AM - you've got basically Gino's Pizza and that's it.

Set all that aside, and all that's left is an okay university. Stop trying to convince yourself that this place is amazing. It's a decent university and that's it.

1) UofT seems to be the only school that I know of where the course enrollment process is pain-free. Every other school has issues.

2) I think our campus is beautiful. It's the perfect blend of new, old, and nature. The fact that we have roads running throughout campus means we don't have to walk on wet grass and get our shoes mucky. The fields that flood have nothing to do with the design of the campus either; that's just nature taking a piss on us all the time. I agree with another poster in that a dinosaur museum is not a negative for Mac. Using that same argument, we have an art museum houses several very famous works (the AGO and other museums borrow from ours all the time) and the largest nuclear reactor in the British Commonwealth. I agree with you on the eng building though. I haven't seen it, but I don't doubt it's nicer than ours.

3) Again, take any city that is not a major city (aka not Toronto, in our case) and very few places are going to be open at 3 AM. We're not the only ones

Originally Posted by AnythingReally

You should put "squirrels" under positive.

The most beast squirrels to ever live.

They're seriously afraid of nothing.

Originally Posted by AelyaS

The most beast squirrels to ever live.

They're seriously afraid of nothing.

Doesn't afraid of anything.

EDIT: Not surprising the faculties of those that are posting all thats great about Mac.

Originally Posted by ...?!

Doesn't afraid of anything.

EDIT: Not surprising the faculties of those that are posting all thats great about Mac.

..................... .what?

Originally Posted by ...?!

Doesn't afraid of anything.

EDIT: Not surprising the faculties of those that are posting all thats great about Mac.

... I see Science, Engineering, Health Sciences, and Humanities/SocSci (? not sure where some of these programs fit lol). Although for the most part the Engineering and you Business faculty people aren't too happy. I don't think it's all that great either but I don't find the school to be specifically bad in any way either, other than course selection/registration, but I can't say that I have any experience with another system working any better elsewhere.

Originally Posted by AelyaS

..................... .what?

He's not surprised by which faculities are posting all the good things about McMaster.

Originally Posted by Kathy2

He's not surprised by which faculities are posting all the good things about McMaster.

I should have fixed my quote. I meant the "doesn't afraid of anything part"

Originally Posted by AelyaS

I should have fixed my quote. I meant the "doesn't afraid of anything part"

Oh, sorry. That part was a joke about something someone else said (not in this thread). I guess it seems odd here since most people wouldn't get it.

There are big problems at McMaster.

Tuition goes up every year but the same cannot be said for the quality of education. We are increasingly getting less bang for our buck. Students are no longer (if they were ever) the number one group of people the school is trying to please. Private donors will only keep giving if their interests are met, but the same cannot be said for students.
Enrollment is only ever going to increase because getting a post-secondary education is looking more and more mandatory to even the lower class, and because of the school's generally good reputation (90th in the World, wow! (get real)). As tuition rises the students have no choice but to pay it, and they are able to do so with student loans. Our current government's philosophy is that any person who wants to go to university, they can, because the government will loan them however much it costs. Which is great for people like me who are heavily reliant on OSAP, but then where does that leave students down the line after they graduate? I can't feel the effect of rising tuition now, but I sure will when I'm looking at my bill after I get my degree.

Class sizes are ever increasing. There are less tenured and permament professors. Instead we get more sessional professors and PhD students teaching our classes.
There also seems to be a lack of a review process to make sure that our professors can actually teach. I encountered this problem more when I was in Engineering, but there some in the Humanities that classify here (H. Ostavich anyone?).
One problem I've faced every year since I switched to Humanities is lack of variety in course offerings. Our Undergraduate Calandar is by no means comprehensive to begin with, but it's really deceptive to then not offer half the courses year after year. I can only attribute this to lack of professors, which means lack of money, which means lack of commitment to the quality of Humanities/Soc Sci education at McMaster. Coincidentally, in the last decade, from which faculties have the most program/degrees been cut?

Also, world rankings are bullshit. A lot of consideration is given to factors like research, publications, "reputation", and graduate studies, none of which directly affect our undergraduate educations. A lot of the stuff that decides whether you're getting a good university education/experience cannot be measured and ranked. McMaster's rankings are greatly bolstered by research and citations and the fact that we have a med school that has its own damn hospital on campus. Compare that to places like Trent, Acadia, Mount Alison, undergraduate focused universities that are nowhere in any rankings but I guarantee you that the kids there are getting better value for their money than we are.

Think about that 55 million dollar Soc Sci/Humanities building that just got funding. That's great, new facilities are always nice, and something like that might factor into world rankings, but it doesn't actually change anything if the teaching is the same. Never have I thought "Wow, this class is really great, but too bad this classroom is so ugly, that really detracts from my education." I would rather they have committed that money to hiring more professors and decreasing class sizes. But what's more impressive to donors, the public, future students and their parents: "Oh hey guys look at this wicked modern building we just got, it's way high tech and energy efficient and pretty and huge" or "oh hey walk around our half century old dungeons. Recently we made the education a lot better, you can't really see that but trust us, it's so good now."

Just to add a jab to that, I would say that if I were to trust any university ranking it would be QS Rankings. 162 overall. Which puts us 8th in Canada behind Alberta, Montreal, Waterloo, and (gasp!) Queen's. And note the steady decline of Arts/Humanities from 98 to 273 since 2007, which is reflective of what's happened to our funding lately. Also they put McGill over UofT which I think is pretty savvy. But anyway, forget about rankings.

But in the end I'm not too mad at McMaster specifically because these problems run across the board for all Universities in Canada. I can't really think of any McMaster specific complaints. Maybe that the disparity of attention between the Sciences and Humanities is greater here than at other schools. Mugsi/Solar is undoubtedly a piece of shit and actually is like the worst course selection system in Canada, if you believe MacClean's rankings. Oh, and the girls are prettier at Guelph.

Our campus is actually pretty nice. Though I'm not too thrilled with the look of the big glass engineering boxes they're dropping over on the west/south side of campus. That entire area of campus, behind BSB, around ABB and Thode is just plain ugly and uncomfortable. The constant droning coming from the reactor or some other building doesn't help that. Why do people keep saying we have a nuclear reactor on campus like it's a good thing? What has that reactor ever done for me? Noisy piece of crap.

I'll be honest; there are several days I wake up, look at the particular structure of my program and realise that the academic interests I have developed cannot be pursued due to the confines of the program requirements. I really really wish McMaster had more double major programs, particularly one in Chemistry and Biology (not Chemical Biology or Biochemistry. I was in Chem Bio; not the stream I was looking for).

That being said, as I think it is necessary to maintain some healthy level of constructive criticism, I love it here. I can't study everything I want to and that's a damn shame, but the people I have met, the opportunities I have had to challenge myself and the breadth that I have learned far makes up for that.

Some of the most valuable people in my life are people I met with or bonded more with at Mac and if it wasn't for the education I received here, including the professors who pushed me and believed in me and the teaching assistants who challenged me and put up with my incessant talking, I wouldn't even know that I had the passion to learn everything I now want to.

Originally Posted by Twelve Chars

There are big problems at McMaster.

Tuition goes up every year but the same cannot be said for the quality of education. We are increasingly getting less bang for our buck. Students are no longer (if they were ever) the number one group of people the school is trying to please. Private donors will only keep giving if their interests are met, but the same cannot be said for students.
Enrollment is only ever going to increase because getting a post-secondary education is looking more and more mandatory to even the lower class, and because of the school's generally good reputation (90th in the World, wow! (get real)). As tuition rises the students have no choice but to pay it, and they are able to do so with student loans. Our current government's philosophy is that any person who wants to go to university, they can, because the government will loan them however much it costs. Which is great for people like me who are heavily reliant on OSAP, but then where does that leave students down the line after they graduate? I can't feel the effect of rising tuition now, but I sure will when I'm looking at my bill after I get my degree.

Class sizes are ever increasing. There are less tenured and permament professors. Instead we get more sessional professors and PhD students teaching our classes.
There also seems to be a lack of a review process to make sure that our professors can actually teach. I encountered this problem more when I was in Engineering, but there some in the Humanities that classify here (H. Ostavich anyone?).
One problem I've faced every year since I switched to Humanities is lack of variety in course offerings. Our Undergraduate Calandar is by no means comprehensive to begin with, but it's really deceptive to then not offer half the courses year after year. I can only attribute this to lack of professors, which means lack of money, which means lack of commitment to the quality of Humanities/Soc Sci education at McMaster. Coincidentally, in the last decade, from which faculties have the most program/degrees been cut?

Also, world rankings are bullshit. A lot of consideration is given to factors like research, publications, "reputation", and graduate studies, none of which directly affect our undergraduate educations. A lot of the stuff that decides whether you're getting a good university education/experience cannot be measured and ranked. McMaster's rankings are greatly bolstered by research and citations and the fact that we have a med school that has its own damn hospital on campus. Compare that to places like Trent, Acadia, Mount Alison, undergraduate focused universities that are nowhere in any rankings but I guarantee you that the kids there are getting better value for their money than we are.

Think about that 55 million dollar Soc Sci/Humanities building that just got funding. That's great, new facilities are always nice, and something like that might factor into world rankings, but it doesn't actually change anything if the teaching is the same. Never have I thought "Wow, this class is really great, but too bad this classroom is so ugly, that really detracts from my education." I would rather they have committed that money to hiring more professors and decreasing class sizes. But what's more impressive to donors, the public, future students and their parents: "Oh hey guys look at this wicked modern building we just got, it's way high tech and energy efficient and pretty and huge" or "oh hey walk around our half century old dungeons. Recently we made the education a lot better, you can't really see that but trust us, it's so good now."

Just to add a jab to that, I would say that if I were to trust any university ranking it would be QS Rankings. 162 overall. Which puts us 8th in Canada behind Alberta, Montreal, Waterloo, and (gasp!) Queen's. And note the steady decline of Arts/Humanities from 98 to 273 since 2007, which is reflective of what's happened to our funding lately. Also they put McGill over UofT which I think is pretty savvy. But anyway, forget about rankings.

But in the end I'm not too mad at McMaster specifically because these problems run across the board for all Universities in Canada. I can't really think of any McMaster specific complaints. Maybe that the disparity of attention between the Sciences and Humanities is greater here than at other schools. Mugsi/Solar is undoubtedly a piece of shit and actually is like the worst course selection system in Canada, if you believe MacClean's rankings. Oh, and the girls are prettier at Guelph.

Our campus is actually pretty nice. Though I'm not too thrilled with the look of the big glass engineering boxes they're dropping over on the west/south side of campus. That entire area of campus, behind BSB, around ABB and Thode is just plain ugly and uncomfortable. The constant droning coming from the reactor or some other building doesn't help that. Why do people keep saying we have a nuclear reactor on campus like it's a good thing? What has that reactor ever done for me? Noisy piece of crap.

I don't have the time on hand right now to respond to all of that post; I will say though that I do agree that there are several areas we could improve upon, as could many other universities. Completely right with that.

However, one direct thing the reactor does is increase the worth of your degree. By bringing in researchers who will then teach you (or whom you could work with) as well as funding for the university, the reactor does do a lot.

Me and a kid at my work got into a fight about which uni is better (western or mac), he said how all his profs are "AWESOME" and how his campus is "AMAZING" and how in every lecture hall theres a plug for every three seats which is "AWESOMELY CONVENIENT", But then I just reminded him how his school was on playboys top ten party schools... That was fun.

Originally Posted by goodnews.inc

However, one direct thing the reactor does is increase the worth of your degree. By bringing in researchers who will then teach you (or whom you could work with) as well as funding for the university, the reactor does do a lot.

Good researchers don't always (or like, often) make good professors. I don't know how much funding the reactor gets the school and how much of that funding goes to improve anything that would affect the lowly undergraduates. Anyway I'm in Humanities so I'm pretty sure none of my professors have ever been to the reactor.

Originally Posted by Twelve Chars

Class sizes are ever increasing. There are less tenured and permament professors. Instead we get more sessional professors and PhD students teaching our classes.
There also seems to be a lack of a review process to make sure that our professors can actually teach. I encountered this problem more when I was in Engineering, but there some in the Humanities that classify here (H. Ostavich anyone?).
One problem I've faced every year since I switched to Humanities is lack of variety in course offerings. Our Undergraduate Calandar is by no means comprehensive to begin with, but it's really deceptive to then not offer half the courses year after year. I can only attribute this to lack of professors, which means lack of money, which means lack of commitment to the quality of Humanities/Soc Sci education at McMaster. Coincidentally, in the last decade, from which faculties have the most program/degrees been cut?

Also, world rankings are bullshit. A lot of consideration is given to factors like research, publications, "reputation", and graduate studies, none of which directly affect our undergraduate educations. A lot of the stuff that decides whether you're getting a good university education/experience cannot be measured and ranked. McMaster's rankings are greatly bolstered by research and citations and the fact that we have a med school that has its own damn hospital on campus. Compare that to places like Trent, Acadia, Mount Alison, undergraduate focused universities that are nowhere in any rankings but I guarantee you that the kids there are getting better value for their money than we are.

Think about that 55 million dollar Soc Sci/Humanities building that just got funding. That's great, new facilities are always nice, and something like that might factor into world rankings, but it doesn't actually change anything if the teaching is the same. Never have I thought "Wow, this class is really great, but too bad this classroom is so ugly, that really detracts from my education." I would rather they have committed that money to hiring more professors and decreasing class sizes. But what's more impressive to donors, the public, future students and their parents: "Oh hey guys look at this wicked modern building we just got, it's way high tech and energy efficient and pretty and huge" or "oh hey walk around our half century old dungeons. Recently we made the education a lot better, you can't really see that but trust us, it's so good now."

Just to add a jab to that, I would say that if I were to trust any university ranking it would be QS Rankings. 162 overall. Which puts us 8th in Canada behind Alberta, Montreal, Waterloo, and (gasp!) Queen's. And note the steady decline of Arts/Humanities from 98 to 273 since 2007, which is reflective of what's happened to our funding lately. Also they put McGill over UofT which I think is pretty savvy. But anyway, forget about rankings.

But in the end I'm not too mad at McMaster specifically because these problems run across the board for all Universities in Canada. I can't really think of any McMaster specific complaints. Maybe that the disparity of attention between the Sciences and Humanities is greater here than at other schools. Mugsi/Solar is undoubtedly a piece of shit and actually is like the worst course selection system in Canada, if you believe MacClean's rankings. Oh, and the girls are prettier at Guelph.

Our campus is actually pretty nice. Though I'm not too thrilled with the look of the big glass engineering boxes they're dropping over on the west/south side of campus. That entire area of campus, behind BSB, around ABB and Thode is just plain ugly and uncomfortable. The constant droning coming from the reactor or some other building doesn't help that. Why do people keep saying we have a nuclear reactor on campus like it's a good thing? What has that reactor ever done for me? Noisy piece of crap.

Your right, tuition is a large problem in Ontario. I don't know who in their right mind thought McMaster's tuition is cheap (well Ontario's tuition really, they're pretty much the same across the board dependent on the program). Ontario has the highest tuition rates in Canada. Its gone to the point where UofTs president noted that universities in Ontario are no longer public universities, but just publicly assisted private ones. If people want to see change for tuition drop though, voice your concerns with the provincial government, not McMaster's administration.

... No disagreement with that second, third or fourth part. We are the 6th largest university in the province (out of 23). I don't know why people thought class sizes in McMaster were small. Most people seemed to have assumed here that if its smaller than a first year UofT class, its small.

It is fair that you use the QS ranking, everyone is entitled to believe in which methodology of ranking universities is the best way to properly judge their schools. It is also pretty clear that McMaster's student handbook just cherrypicked the best looking rank (McMaster uses the Academic Ranking of World Universities, 88th overall). You earlier mention that research and "reputation" is your major issue with world rankings, but you fail to realize that QS ranks based off those too. Just so you know, the QS rankings are based 60% on research and faculty publications.

The major problem which many people, and I have with QS is the fact that their way of ranking universities is that they are not transparent in their way of ranking what marks they actually give the universities other than their final rank. So I don't know why you think QS is the rankings to trust when only one of the big three world rankers are transparent in their findings. Furthermore with the whole comparison of 2007 and 2010 rankings, you cannot compare the QS's 2007 rankings with its 2010 rankings. Actually, you cannot compare its 2010 rankings with any of its other rankings. While the methodology remains largely intact, you can see how The Times played a major influencing factor in its previous rankings, as The Times and QS collaborated in ranking schools from 2004-2009.

The ARWU is transparent in its findings, and supported by the The Economist and EU Research Headline. However critics of the ARWU state that it is heavily biased on scientific publications (this is a criticism held by QS). This leaves the last of the big three rankers for universities, The Times Higher Education World University Report. This is by far the most transparent of the three rankings as it tells me how exactly teaching is ranked (teaching and the learning environment is worth 30% of the marks, McMaster gets a failing mark of 44.7/100). McMaster on this ranking is ranked 93rd on this list, which isn't too bad.

On a side note, the Arts and Humanities section of QS for 2011 was just released, and it looks pretty good for Mac in history and geography (ranked 4th in Canada, 51-100 internationally each). The other subjects were what you expected. The 2011 Engineering & Technology and Life Sciences & Medical rankings are also out, but not the full 2011 rankings yet.

And one last thing. That list seems to either be entirely relative, contains points which are moot, or are just completely made up. I'll just point out the largest flaws:

1. It is, but how is this a plus for Mac and a negative elsewhere?
2. Based off of?
3. As does Queen's, Western, UofT, etc.
4. It is, but how is this a plus for Mac and a negative elsewhere?

6. Have you attended all universities in Ontario?
7. Based off of?

9. As does every other university in Ontario

11. Relative.
12. Queen's has Lake Ontario, UBC has University Lands and the Pacific Ocean, every university has something, whats makes Cootes better?
13. Which campus does?
14. It is, but how is this a plus for Mac and a negative elsewhere?
15. UOIT, York, Ryerson, OCAD, UTSG, UTM, UTSC, University of Guelph-Humber are in the GTA too.
16. Mac has a large douchebag identity, and like most douchebag identities, we're completely oblivious to it. "LOOLLLL ATLEAST WERE NOT FROM QUEENS!" is pretty douchebag thing to say (which is commonly heard around Mac).
17. Can you think of any program that is really bad anywhere in Canada?
18. Based off of?
19. Have you used all public transportation systems in Canada to know this?
20. Ok no. Read above about tuition.
21. Relative. Some people prefer online education tools.
22. First off, McMaster doesn't have access to GO Train, we have access to a GO bus. At least 8 other universities have access to a GO bus. And which university doesn't have access to local transit or a highway.
23. Wind Home Zone across the GTA, Vancouver, Montreal, Edmonton, Calgary, Alberta and Kitchener-Waterloo this fall. How is this a bonus for Mac.
24. Arguable as pointed out earlier.
25. No one looks down on a university degree thats not from a degree mill. The only looking people do is up... and thats for Harvard.
26. Relative.
27. Looking at the NOT OFFERED courses in the undergrad calendar, I beg to differ.

Out of that entire list, there were really only four things that weren't relative or could be made moot. Seriously McMaster is alright, but people should really try to make that claim off of its merits as opposed to "what that university doesn't have".

Originally Posted by Leventio

And one last thing. That list seems to either be entirely relative, contains points which are moot, or are just completely made up. I'll just point out the largest flaws:

1. It is, but how is this a plus for Mac and a negative elsewhere?
2. Based off of?
3. As does Queen's, Western, UofT, etc.
4. It is, but how is this a plus for Mac and a negative elsewhere?

6. Have you attended all universities in Ontario?
7. Based off of?

9. As does every other university in Ontario

11. Relative.
12. Queen's has Lake Ontario, UBC has University Lands and the Pacific Ocean, every university has something, whats makes Cootes better?
13. Which campus does?
14. It is, but how is this a plus for Mac and a negative elsewhere?
15. UOIT, York, Ryerson, OCAD, UTSG, UTM, UTSC, University of Guelph-Humber are in the GTA too.
16. Mac has a large douchebag identity, and like most douchebag identities, we're completely oblivious to it. "LOOLLLL ATLEAST WERE NOT FROM QUEENS!" is pretty douchebag thing to say (which is commonly heard around Mac).
17. Can you think of any program that is really bad anywhere in Canada?
18. Based off of?
19. Have you used all public transportation systems in Canada to know this?
20. Ok no. Read above about tuition.
21. Relative. Some people prefer online education tools.
22. First off, McMaster doesn't have access to GO Train, we have access to a GO bus. At least 8 other universities have access to a GO bus. And which university doesn't have access to local transit or a highway.
23. Wind Home Zone across the GTA, Vancouver, Montreal, Edmonton, Calgary, Alberta and Kitchener-Waterloo this fall. How is this a bonus for Mac.
24. Arguable as pointed out earlier.
25. No one looks down on a university degree thats not from a degree mill. The only looking people do is up... and thats for Harvard.
26. Relative.
27. Looking at the NOT OFFERED courses in the undergrad calendar, I beg to differ.

Out of that entire list, there were really only four things that weren't relative or could be made moot. Seriously McMaster is alright, but people should really try to make that claim off of its merits as opposed to "what that university doesn't have".

Lol ok buddy, relax. Waaaay too much pessimism in one post. Looking at all those comments about things being "relative" and "you're not allowed to say that because you haven't experienced everything yet", seems like no one would be allowed to have an opinion.

I think the OP was just trying to give us his opinion on why he thinks mac is amazing