r/mcgill

I’m in disbelief right now, I confirmed a supervisor in March to start an MSc at McGill this fall. We had a lengthy discussion discussing potential projects I could work on, came up with a solid plan for my thesis and hypotheses I could explore, and ended with the professor saying it was a great fit. We planned another meeting in early May to start working on application materials like a thesis proposal, personal statement, and funding applications. I was instructed to do a bit of literature review and look up funding application deadlines, and that we would discuss my start date in the lab at our next meeting.

Fast forward to end of April, the prof cancels our meeting because an “urgent matter” came up but that we would reschedule shortly. I heard nothing from the prof for two weeks, so just followed up today… Got a reply they have two students who submitted their applications and so the prof is unable to take me on. Wished me luck in my future endeavours.

WHAT? Am I losing it? Did I misinterpret something or this actually an incredibly shitty thing to do? Is this how it goes in academia?????

What do I do now? I’ve turned down other supervision opportunities from professors who were interested in working with me because I thought I had confirmed a supervisor already. I’ve secured letters of recommendation that are submitted ready to go for my application. I’m at a complete loss.

apparently it's 50% off rn gym memberships at mcgill gym but also their summer hours might lowkey be trash.. should i just get a gym membership at econofitness? anytimefitness? any recs? thank u 🙏

A bit of a rant but not much because I am honestly too tired of everything, including typing

International grad student, convocation coming in less than a month. In my third month of unemployment, have no PhD prospects (maybe I just wasn't competitive). Did everything I was "supposed" to do, and more: perfect grades, extra classes, even learned French up to intermediate level, did on-campus work for straight up two years, and now even Dollarama will not hire me. Applying to jobs every day, don't want to work because of last semester deeply burning me out, but "need" to work to eat/rent.

Yeah yeah, humanities masters (so cue the gender studies/Starbucks barista jokes I guess) and all that but I was good at it, enjoyed it, but always felt like academia did not want me despite how hard I tried. Always the same peers, often white and citizens, moving up no matter how I outworked and networked past them (not to take anything away from them). I also tried very hard to sustain friendships and meaningful connections, lowk always being the one to text, initiate, but you see someone once at a McGill social event, exchange numbers, and never talk again. Campus is a maze so you quite literally never run into them again. Grad students are awkward and always whining about age (despite being pretty young, and even if not it doesn't matter. I am no exception to the whining btw.) God bless PGSS for trying its best to get us to socialize.

I am exiting grad school almost 30 (in more than a year and a half), with lowkey nothing to show. Family cannot come to convocation (visa, distance, costs), and for even teaching in a college (I am qualified with my decently numerous TA experience + degree) Quebec requires some arcane verification of documents to create an equivalence education eval or some BS. I dunno dawg, no one is coming to save me. I will say its okay to do grad school for the love of the game/academia but have an exit plan. I don't know what it is I did over these two years, but I feel even more hollow than before I started. Anyway, sorry to be morose, just putting this out here in case others feel this way.

Hi! I'm a Stats and CS major looking for some relatively easy electives (“bird courses”) for Fall 2026 and Winter 2027.

So far, I’ve taken COMP 189, PHIL 200, and ISLA 210, and I’ve realized I really enjoy philosophy courses. I’d also be interested in trying a SOCI course at some point.

Here are some electives I’m considering:

Computer/General

• COMP 189: Computers and Society (already taken)
• MATH 180: The Art of Mathematics
• PHYS 180: Space, Time and Matter

Philosophy

• PHIL 200: Intro to Philosophy (already taken)
• PHIL 201: Intro to Philosophy 2
• PHIL 203: Intro to AI Ethics
• PHIL 237: Contemporary Moral Issues
• PHIL 334: Ethical Theory
• PHIL 306: Philosophy of Mind

Sociology

• SOCI 210: Sociological Perspective
• SOCI 301: AI and Society
• SOCI 213: Deviance
• SOCI 235: Technology and Society
• SOCI 325: Sociology of Science

Other

• ISLA 210: Muslim Societies (already taken)
• ATOC 185: Natural Disasters
• EDEA: Drawing

Ideally, I’m looking for courses that are:

• More essay-based
• Have fewer exams (or no final, if possible)
• Not too time-consuming or memorization-heavy

That said, I’m still open to other options as long as the workload is manageable.

Also, I’m very interested in taking PHIL 203 (Introduction to AI Ethics) in the winter. It aligns a lot with my interests, especially since there aren’t many AI ethics courses in my program that I could use for future projects/research.

If anyone has taken PHIL 203, I’d love to know:

• How was the course structure?
• Was it exam-heavy or more essay-based?
• Overall, was it worth taking?

Thanks in advance for any suggestions or advice! : )

i’ve heard all about the grading scheme, what’s the assessments like? any tips? pls🙏🙏🙏

EDIT: I JUST CHECKED MINERVA AND GIULIA ISNT TEACHING it?? it’s hsiu-chin lin

Why did they post some final grade thingy for math 222 only to remove it. I am already devastated by the exam and wanna drop out and become a homeless crack addict and then they ragebait us like that. The sad thing is the shit they posted was enough for me to pass. Now the cortisol levels are off the charts and I can't sleep! Thanks Math 222 TAs or Prof. Hundemer VERY COOL FINAL AND VERY NICE MOVES.

Was thinking about taking an unpaid internship at a small company. I just don’t know if it’s worth it. Don’t have other offers for now.

course registration is coming up and so far i cant see any of my major's courses on vsb

I'd like to surprise the kid with a gift that's not something normally acquired upfront by freshmen when moving in but is routinely useful throughout the undergrad years. It can be a tangible item or a service.

Budget for the gift: up to CAD $1500.

Edit: Thanks for the suggestions everyone. The laptop and iPad are already taken care of, just to clarify.

it’s now available on Minerva for those who aren’t aware!:)

hi everybody, for the longest time since grade 10, mcgill has been my dream school and I am currently commited to here. However, yesterday mcmaster healthsci decisions came out and I found out I got accepted. I understand how lucky I am to be accepted into such a prestigious program, however I am extremely conflicted about where to attend. My main end goal is med school, and mac hs is often considered the gateway into med school essentially.

With the deadline to commit to mac healthsci coming up in the beginning of June, I have to consider my options carefully. One huge reason I chose to commit to mcgill is because of how beautiful the campus is and how wonderful montreal is as a city. I also have all my flights and airbnb booked to mcgill already for the summer when I visit. When looking at hamilton, ontario I just dont get the excitement and joy I get from mcgill. At the end of the day, academics and opportunities are the most important however the city does look a bit depressing and I'm not sure if ill thrive in that environment.

I am just searching for insight about mcgill as I understand the academics here are rigorous and gpa is extremely important for med school.

I came into McGill thinking I was gonna cook but honestly got humbled really fast. I struggled a lot in courses like calc and bio despite putting in way more work than I expected to need, and my GPA ended up much lower than what’s considered competitive for med school.

What’s been stressing me out is seeing friends at other universities maintain near-4.0 GPAs while I’m struggling here, and hearing people tell me I should just transfer somewhere “easier” if med school is the goal.

I’m not planning to give up or transfer right now, but I genuinely want to know how did ppl recover academically after a rough first year, what changes helped, and if I’m rly making a good choice staying here.

Deep down I do not wanna leave McGill because it’s been a dream from young age to be here, even if imma not be pursuing med anymore.

Would appreciate hearing honest experiences from upper years/alumni.

I passed. This is not real. I studied for 2h the morning of the final and somehow learned the second part of the course on YouTube shorts.
I would like to thank blackpenredpen on YouTube, who explained the entire curriculum in 120 minutes.

Hi all! I’m a second year in the faculty of arts majoring in Econ. I finished the year off with a 3.96 and I was just wondering the likelihood of receiving a scholarship for the 2026-27 year. I was also wondering what the typical amounts are for scholarships. Thanks so much!!

Hey everyone,

I recently took Math 222 with Axel Hundemer and let's be honest he is a great prof but the final exam was not what I expected it to be. It was so hard I had cold sweat running down my head and a pit in my stomach of impending doom. The thing is, I was aiming to get a 4.0 from that class as I had already accumulated 85 in midterms and a 100% in webwork. I studied my balls off for the final did 30+ pages of exercises and that still wasn't enough. I was wondering, cause I saw that he said this in the discussion:

There will be a supplemental/deferred exam in August. The precise date is still TBD

Say I failed the final (probably did) and failed it so bad that I failed the whole class (probably will) what can I do then. I read about the supplemental exam and was wondering if that is just for students with special reasons but idk.

Please let me know as this will destroy my GPA, my self esteem and my life moving forwards.

Hello guys, does anyone have any idea how long it takes class averages for courses taken in Winter 2026 to get released? I got asked for it as a requirement when I used my transcript which is why I’m asking.

What’s your opinion on the hardest courses to do well amongst the required/complementary courses of the standard computer science degree? Whether if the material is hard or the grading is just hell I’m curious what yall think

I know the protests last year covered a lot of this but something more specific is bothering me. I now second guess my own sentence structure before submitting anything, not because I used AI but because I write in a way that apparently looks like I did. The actual mechanism is that detectors score you on perplexity and burstiness and consistent precise writing scores low on both which is exactly what years of academic training produces. I spent four years being told structured writing is the goal and now that same quality is what gets me flagged. There is a recently launched startup called wecatchai human review that someone in my faculty mentioned, apparently the school of continuing studies has a few people using it, it uses human reviewers to vary the phrasing so detectors stop flagging it, but I honestly do not know enough about it to say whether that fixes anything or just adds a step, and the whole thing makes me feel strange in a way I cannot fully articulate. Is anyone else actively changing how they write just to survive submission because that feels like exactly the wrong outcome from a system that is supposed to protect academic integrity.