University Needs to Change — Perspective From a New Grad
I graduated from Queen’s University in April of 2017 with a Mechanical Engineering degree. I did not enjoy my learning experience at university and I think there is a lot of room for improvement in universities. I’ve spoken to a lot of my friends, some university alumni and some still in university, and they’ve also shared some of their concern with the university system.
Topics Taught in Courses
Some of the courses I completed dug into subjects that got into very specific details and were very niche topics. I can’t remember a good deal of the stuff I was taught in the classroom because I usually ended up memorizing ideas in order to be able to use them to answer questions on an exam or test. A lot of the courses skipped over the foundational principles/ideas that are necessary to understand before going over the more complex ideas.
I think there should be a larger emphasis on teaching the foundational ideas and concepts of any particular subject and occasionally diving deeper into some more complex ideas.
In my turbo machinery class I could calculate the entropy change of a turbine blade with a certain angle of attack, temperature and pressure. Except I had no idea what a gas turbine even looked like or the basics needed to understand the engine. There were fundamental things that needed to be taught to me, that in my opinion weren’t covered. Turbines are easy, but they didn’t make them easy in school.
- Stephen (Field Service Representative at Solar Turbines)
Non Personalized Experience
In university everyone in a program largely does the same thing in terms of courses, tests, and projects. I understand that you want all students in a program to come out of university with an understanding of the key principles related to a degree, but how much of those ideas are really being retained by students at the moment?
Not everyone learns at the same pace, so I’m not sure why it is expected for every student to learn everything in the same time frame. There have been many times where I’ve listened in lecture about a particular topic and it just wasn’t “clicking” in my head, whereas my friend next to me seemed to perfectly understand what was being taught and was able to apply it to solve problems right away. When I didn’t truly understand something, I had to result to memorizing solutions to problems as well as memorizing patterns to solve problems. I would have much rather had more time to truly dive into the topic and understand exactly what’s going on.
Teaching Methods
Some teachers are great and some are the opposite of great. I don’t think people should have to endure attending lectures taught by poor teachers. I’m not a fan of the mandatory attendance of some of the courses I had in university since it felt like I was a prisoner of the professor. I think ALL course material should be available online for students to learn from and that attendance to classes should be optional.
Students should have the choice to attend in-person lectures they are interested in. I think this would benefit both the professor and student. If students are interested in the topic, then they will attend the lecture to hear more about it and will likely be absorbing more of the information in the lecture. This also positively benefits the professors since the attending students will be more attentive and engaged, possibly provoking more questions/discussions during the lecture and further reinforcing what is being taught. However, if the topic is of little interest to students or if the professor is just a bad teacher, then students will not have to endure a boring lecture and can simply learn from the online materials available. A lack of attendance would also provide the professor with a hint that either the topic is not interesting or that they are just a poor teacher. In my experience, there is no such thing as a boring topic, just a poorly presented topic.
Gabriel, a postdoctoral researcher who has spent many years in university, suggests to decouple teaching and research. Some teachers are not good researchers and vice versa. Requiring teachers to do both results in diluting the quality of teaching and/or research done by the professors.
Extracurriculars
This is probably the best part of university. Being part of student run organizations and groups is extremely rewarding because of the things you learn through that experience as well as the many relationships you develop by interacting with people that share similar interests as you. There is no shortage of student clubs at university and if there is not a group that exists that you are interested in, you can easily create one yourself and you’ll find many other students will want to join.
This is something I regret not taking more advantage of in university. I briefly participated on the rowing, cycling, and ski teams, but injuries prevented me from doing too much with those teams. I joined the Engineering Society IT team which gave me some practical experience working on a team developing a web application. This experience helped me when applying for jobs after university.
Practical Experience
Internships/Co-Ops should be mandatory in university. I had one summer job and one 4-month co-op with engineering companies while at university, but would have liked much more exposure to industry. I think the 4 month co-ops are better than 8–12 month commitments, since it doesn’t lock you in with a company that you discover you don’t like working at for an extended amount of time.
I honestly believe my internship was one of the most important things I did in university. I was able to talk about my intern experience to land my current role as a Nuclear Operator.
- Alan, Nuclear Operator in Training at Bruce Power
I got valuable takeaways from my co-op experience at university and it was great to get exposure to a similar job to the one I would be doing after graduation. It also gives you a taste of whether the discipline you are studying is one in which you want to continue pursuing. Personally, I did not enjoy my 4-month co-op and it was what convinced me that an engineering job is not what I wanted to pursue. Unfortunately, I did that co-op right before my final year at university so I decided to grit my teeth of finish my degree instead of starting a new degree in another field.
More focus on soft skills will be important moving forward because of technology and I think schools can do a better job incorporating these skills into programs that have traditionally been “study then exam” without any need to present, work in groups, complete projects, etc.
- Eric, Alumni and Master of Management Innovation from Queen’s University
Course Evaluation
A lot of the grading in university is done based on the ability of students to memorize ideas and regurgitate them on paper during an exam. There have been many times where I’ve stayed up late at night memorizing how to solve particular problems (all the while thinking how stupid the whole thing was). This was one of the most frustrating things for me in university. I wasn’t learning anything, just memorizing stuff!
Grading is a joke. Exams would sometimes be the same from previous years, and then it becomes a matter of memorizing answers. Waste of time since there isn’t any real learning going on.
- Anonymous
Course projects that allowed for a certain amount of freedom were great ways of learning and applying ideas. I think university should be more project focused. This allows you to work with other people (which is an important skill to have) and also forces you to think critically to come up with a workable solution.
University is always trying to self-promote, and the best way to do that is to show that all of its students are passing their programs, so they encourage professors to stick to a certain pass rate in courses, limiting the ability of profs to fail students who do not meet their requirements.
- Joey, New Grad of Engineering Master’s Program
Something I would like to see in university is requiring students to present a big project at the end of every year. This would be the only grading done for the entire year. The project requirements would be very liberal and allow for students to come up with something that truly interests them.
Mental Health
There is a lot of pressure in university. Pressure of getting good grades, to keep up with your classmates, to look good to prospective employers and the pressure to appear like everything is peachy. As a result, university can be a dark place for many people that are unable to cope with these pressures. There are some suicides that occur in university and something even more disturbing is how some universities try hard to keep this out of the media in order to keep a clean name. A recent example is provided by the brother of a University of Waterloo student who committed suicide in 2017.
I’ve spoken to two students at the University of Waterloo (one alumni and another who is still in school). Both have talked about the ridiculously high workload demanded of students. Also, if people are struggling, they keep it a secret because jobs and perceived intelligence make up a person’s reputation. Worse yet is that those that try to get help from others are seen as a lesser person.
In my experience at Queen’s University, I did not experience highly depressive moments, nor was the stress too much for me the handle. However, not everyone deals with stress the same way and I know friends that got extremely worked up about their grades. I also know friends that took advantage of some mental health resources available on campus (i.e. professionals that people can talk to). I remember seeing many references to the mental health resources that are available at Queen’s, especially during exam time, which was encouraging to see. For example many emails sent by the university’s principal mentioned mental health resources and many Facebook posts on university groups made mention of other resources (my favourite being the “hug a dog” events that always come up during exam time).
Soft Skills
You can get through university with very little interaction with other people and not pick up any social skills. There are of course no shortage of parties in university. Attending parties is great to meet other people and get used to interacting with others. However, there are some people that aren’t particularly enjoyable to talk to. There could be many reasons for this, but I think a lot of it has to do with people not carefully thinking about what they are saying and how it will affect others.
There is a great book I read while in university titled How to Win Friends and Influence People, by Dale Carnegie. It honestly made me rethink the way I was communicating with others. I think there should be more of an emphasis on these “soft skills” in university, whether it is through a course or encouraging students to attend many networking opportunities for students.
I think there is a lot of change that is required from universities in order to truly have students learn practical and applicable information for their post graduation endeavours. Considering the significant financial investment that students put towards their university education, the value that is currently being provided to students is appalling.
