5 Reasons Why Concordia University May Not be for You!

welcome back to another video today I want to talk about five things that are bad or not great when it comes to studying at Concordia University here in Montreal now this video is going to be more controversial some people may agree some people won't use the comments to share your experience or your perspective and we can discuss things there if you disagree with me or if you think I'm missing things out or overestimating certain aspects let's get right into it start with Point number one this is something that I've also mentioned in another video where I talked about the good things about Concordia we are very integrated into downtown we don't really have our own campus the problem with that is you don't get that feeling of unity like the the I'd say the Identity or the identification of the students with the university is rather weak it's more like a utility the university you go there to study but it doesn't feel like a family per se now some Majors some groups form themselves and you know you have your group in uni obviously you identify with them but the kind of image um or the feeling that you're part of something bigger that is called Concordia University in my experience and the experience of the people that I surround myself with it hasn't really been the case um for some people that might be an advantage actually for some it might not if you're looking for their typical North American you know feeling of high school campus everybody supports all the sports teams all the time weekend all you do is go to one sports game after the other you hang out on campus the entire time see all your friends all the time it's just not the case for me you know like you go to classes you have your classes and you go back home you go to your apartment you go to Plateau you stay in downtown some people stay in the library some people are in the library all the time but it's not necessarily that you go to campus in the morning you stay on campus all day long and then you go back you know go back from campus go back home in the evening we have restaurants spread all over the city we have shops spread all over the city um so you there's really no need to stay on campus per se the entire time now with that we do also have Loyola which is a separate campus like 30 minutes away from from downtown Montreal the university provides free shuttles that go every 30 minutes between the campuses so it's very accessible in a way um on Loyola it's more like that kind of unified feeling because Loyola is so far outside Montreal that there are no other shops than anything so you would go to iloola you would spend your day there and then go back to downtown or some people even live at Loyola there is a student residence there too depending on your program on your major you might spend more time on Loyola you might not um but if you're looking for that kind of Campus feeling honestly I don't think um you'll get that as much at Concordia as you would get in other universities even McGill here has more of that because they're a little bit more segregated um while still being close to downtown um yeah for me personally I prefer the super integrated into downtown of Concordia to the segregated McGill honestly um I like the feeling of being integrated downtown I don't need that feeling but I know a lot of people go to college for that kind of feeling so be aware of that now I mentioned the two campuses this can be an advantage if you prefer the kind of outside campus and the calmer area and you take your classes there but also it comes with a disadvantage because some people especially if you're in arts and science I think that's probably the major that has the most classes there but also like theater students some Majors just have a lot of classes at Loyola and that means you have to commute forth and back it's not a massive commute it's 30 minutes but it's you know it's 30 minutes and you have to go first and back you forgot something at home you just can't can't just go back something to consider that's in my opinion the second kind of disadvantage of living or studying here in Montreal at Concordia University let's get to the third point now this is going to be controversial too I know most of the people that work for Concord University do the best they can maybe they lack resources or whatever it is I've personally had very bad experiences with the support and the admins at Concordia and I know quite a few people that also had bad experience now it's not that University necessarily act proactively puts hurdles into your way but if there is a problem I found it very difficult honestly to solve it with Concordia most of the time these kind of problems you have to figure out and solve on your own don't kill me in the comments please but share great experiences if you have normally they're very kind and they're very generous and and just nice people but when you have to solve a problem quickly you know being nice is cool but it doesn't usually get the problem done unfortunately um so yeah it's always Pleasant to interact with them but when you actually have to get stuff done it's just yeah it can be very difficult Point number four Concordia has an extremely high Independence when it comes to choosing classes and courses in general and I guess this is a North American thing as a European it's fascinating and it's awesome um in Europe you choose one one major you choose one kind of stream you go into and if you want to change your direction you have to quit and you have to restart something else here you can adjust as you go you can try out different classes you can try out classes from a completely different department it doesn't really matter you can just see whatever works best for you and you can try out now the great thing about that is the option of having the flexibility but the problem with that is also you don't really have a guarantee of getting the classes that you actually need Concordia does prioritize so for example if I'm in Fine Arts and I want to take a specific business class some business classes are not open for Fine Arts students or outside the Department students unless there are left over spots you know after the deadline for applying so you can wait list yourself and hope that it doesn't get full but often that doesn't happen um so it's very competitive in a way you have to be fast in choosing and selecting classes that you want because you don't have a guarantee that you get them but Concordia does tried their best to actually make sure the people that need the classes get their classes another example of how they try to do this is for example the closer you are to graduating the earlier you get to choose the classes so the earlier like the earlier you are in the process of actually being able to sign up for classes and the last thing that one could consider rather bad about Concordia University is it's extremely fast paced now this does have advantages it makes everything more difficult and in a way it proves that you're capable of handling stress more or better than maybe other students or students from other universities but um the way I experienced it is that the classes are extremely extremely fast it requires a lot of independent work it requires a lot of time after and before classes preparation post like work on the classes you really have to be self-confident and firm in your ability to organize yourself and manage your schedule I know this is a thing generally when it comes to studying at universities but Concordia seems to be another level um on that especially if you're in the engineering part especially if you're in even some of the business classes generally compared to other universities um things that I've heard the stories that I've heard we have a very very high paced environment now the great thing is um you know once the class is done it is done in Germany for example you basically you have a face where you have the lectures you have a face where you have the examinations sometimes they overlap sometimes you have a break in between them but you can't really have a break because you're studying for the examination everything here it's very clear you have your semester within the semester it's stressful but after the semester you can relax and you have nothing to worry about but compared even to other North American universities it seems like Concordia has a very high speed on the classes and that's a wrap on the bad things or negative things about studying at Concordia University I try to be as transparent as possible now I'm sure other people had other experiences share your experiences in the comments this is very important the great things and I did videos about the great things you know that I've experienced at Concordia those are heavily promoted and marketed by the university itself but there are always flaws at universities and there are always problems and usually those are more determining in the fact of are you going there or not then the good things um so let's try to make this video a place where we can share our rather not like our rather bad experiences so we can warn everybody and we can see what our cases that happened only once or twice and what seems to be a more common theme thank you for your participation thanks for watching the video I'll see you in the next one take care and stay tuned bye thank you

Channel: Philipp Klein

Views: 13,181

Keywords: Philipp Klein, PKPhotograph, Montreal, Concordia University Montreal, Film School, International Student, University vlog, Study in Montreal, Canadian Universities, College life, Campus culture, University tuition, University ranking, Student life, Campus facilities, University reputation, Montreal living costs, University programs, International students, Campus accommodation, honest university experience, negative things concordia university, drawbacks concordia university

Id: yvwkoQDRUSc

Length: 10min 46sec (646 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 22 2023