The first time I expressed my desire to attend McGill, my enthusiasm was met with a warning: “You might get in, but it’s difficult to stay in.” They meant that although the university does not have the traditionally single-digit acceptance rates of American Ivy Leagues, the difficulty and low averages of many McGill courses make passing classes almost as difficult as getting into the university itself.
Courses taken early in one’s degree, like BIOL 200 (B- average in Fall 2022 and Fall 2023), MATH 140 (B- average in Fall 2023 and C+ average in Winter 2024), and ECON 209 (B- average in Fall 2023 and Winter 2024, and C average in Summer 2024) have been notorious for their incredible difficulty, leaving a sense that the course is designed to “weed people out” of the program or school. This seems extremely counterintuitive, especially in a student’s first or second year when they are just starting to navigate university life and venture into new areas of study.
University degrees are structured so that students must learn the foundations of their desired program before moving on to upper-level courses that will make use of those same concepts throughout the rest of their degree. The purpose of early-degree prerequisites should be to solidify students’ knowledge in preliminary concepts before they either specialize or proceed to upper-level courses, not to discourage those who don’t immediately excel.
Yet, even for those who don’t get “weeded out”, the high-intensity nature of these foundational courses might weaken a student’s academic foundation. When a student spends a prerequisite course cramming and struggling to keep up rather than thoroughly absorbing the information—especially if they are taking several of these types of courses at once—they will enter future classes without a strong enough grasp on the foundational material to succeed.
As such, these courses essentially “gatekeep” certain degree programs by demotivating students with intense and excessive requirements, leading them to transition to another program they might be less passionate about, or even to a different school entirely. Foundational courses at McGill seem to serve as a test instead of an opportunity to learn, be inspired, and build important skills that will be useful in upper-year courses. Such a system design fails to reward a desire to learn, meaning students end up neglecting courses that inspire them in favour of courses they know they will pass.
The feeling of working hard and still struggling academically has adverse mental health implications, especially for those with learning disabilities or for students who are struggling to adjust to university life. The first year of university requires coming to terms with newfound independence, residence life, unfamiliar social situations, and, for some, even a new country and culture. Unnecessary academic pressure makes this transition even more difficult.
It is true that McGill is a world-class educational institution and therefore needs to hold itself to certain academic standards, but the purpose of a university is to teach and uplift, not to hastily thin the crowd of first-years probing a newfound interest in economics or biology. If courses prioritized supporting students to retain information and less on trying to “weed people out,” then a more accurate sample of people who would not thrive in a program or at the school would self-select. This is a much better alternative than discouraging students with a passion for their desired program by subjecting them to intense preliminary courses and low-grade averages. Instructors can and should encourage learning and retention without compromising academic rigour, and course material should be appropriate for the level of the course. McGill as an institution should be uplifting the students it accepts, rather than using difficult early-year classes to prey on their downfall.
