[Split] McGill Structural Problems

[LemonBee]

As a McGill student, I can’t stress enough how better off you are. Please, ppl, I’m begging you, don’t come to McGill. It’s a dumpster fire full of fireworks inside a gas station... it’s not good. If you have enough French, go to UdeM. 

[GreyDude]

8 minutes ago, LemonBee said:

As a McGill student, I can’t stress enough how better off you are. Please, ppl, I’m begging you, don’t come to McGill. It’s a dumpster fire full of fireworks inside a gas station... it’s not good. If you have enough French, go to UdeM. 

WOW. I sense a certain malaise. That bad?

[BHC1]

7 hours ago, LemonBee said:

As a McGill student, I can’t stress enough how better off you are. Please, ppl, I’m begging you, don’t come to McGill. It’s a dumpster fire full of fireworks inside a gas station... it’s not good. If you have enough French, go to UdeM. 

The contrast between this and the cheery, excited, and optimistic posts that you made two years ago when you got accepted is incredible. Law school really chew you up and spit you out.

Sorry you’re having a rough go. 

[ccq35]

10 hours ago, LemonBee said:

As a McGill student, I can’t stress enough how better off you are. Please, ppl, I’m begging you, don’t come to McGill. It’s a dumpster fire full of fireworks inside a gas station... it’s not good. If you have enough French, go to UdeM. 

As a recent grad watching the proverbial train go off the rails, crash, burn, and explode... I'm so sorry that this is the experience you're having. 

[LemonBee]

2 hours ago, ccq35 said:

As a recent grad watching the proverbial train go off the rails, crash, burn, and explode... I'm so sorry that this is the experience you're having. 

Sigh. Well, at least it's a small comfort to know that other people recognize how bad the situation is right now, and in general. 

I'm not a grouch who's telling prospective students not to go to law school. That's by no means what I'm saying. People who want to do it should certainly do so. In fact, if you're young enough and can do it with minimal debt--for example by doing it in QC--the disadvantages are minimal even for people who leave the field entirely afterward and do something else. It's a bit trickier when people aren't really sure and are looking at 150K in debt after 3 years... What I am saying to people is: go to law school if you want, just don't do it at McGill. 

There's just so much wrong with this place. SO. MUCH. Choosing McGill over ANY other Quebec uni, in my opinion, is only warranted if your French is just horrendous and studying in English at a CML school would be too expensive.

 

 

12 hours ago, GreyDude said:

WOW. I sense a certain malaise. That bad?

I mean... certainly there's malaise on my part, but it's not just a question of how I'm reacting to the structural problems at Mcgill and how they've made me feel... It's the problems themselves...staff personalities/ egos, curricula, pedagogy, admin behavior, physical space, inter alia.

Edited June 6 by LemonBee

[GreyDude]

 

38 minutes ago, LemonBee said:

staff personalities/ egos, curricula, pedagogy, admin behavior, physical space, inter alia.

I mean, this kind of list can be produced for pretty much any institution.  So I’m wondering: we have heard echoes at UdeM about problems with the transsystemic approach, but I have been putting that down to either lack of comprehension (it’s a bit counterintuitive for some black letter types at my school) or exaggeration. Am I wrong? You mentioned both curriculum and pedagogy. Also, how much of this has to do primarily with the strike and issues related to that? 
 

McGill in general seems to have administrative issues. I doubt that’s special to the law faculty.

[carlmark]

 LemonBee-- while I sympathize with your plight, your advice is still rather irresponsible. Sure, you are not telling prospective applicants to not apply to law school, but you are, in very strong terms, advising them to write off a school which is one of the best in the country, and is also the first choice school for many applicants. I am not sure what calling McGill a dumpster is achieving apart from scaring off prospective applicants and making those who have already accepted their offers feel worse. Again, I have no doubt that there is substance to your claims, but to speak in such general terms makes it seem as though your experience is universal. I just think there is a more constructive way to represent this 'malaise' (which, fwiw, I do not think is specific to McGill, I have heard similar complaints from friends all over the country). I wish you the best and hope that things look up for you.

[enpassant]

17 hours ago, LemonBee said:

As a McGill student, I can’t stress enough how better off you are. Please, ppl, I’m begging you, don’t come to McGill. It’s a dumpster fire full of fireworks inside a gas station... it’s not good. If you have enough French, go to UdeM. 

Me reading this as an incoming student ...😭😭

[WiseGhost]

As a current McGill student, I love it apart from the ongoing strike. 

I enjoy the transsystemic pedagogy and I have had opportunities as a student from McGill that would be much harder to attain at other Québec law schools. @LemonBee I am sorry to hear that you haven't had a good experience at McGill so far, but not everyone has the same opinion.

[LemonBee]

Wooah, when did this become its own thread? I note my objection to this being called “McGill Malaise” 😂because, as I said above, I don’t appreciate the connotation of malaise here… my point is about the structural problems, not just how I feel. 
 

yes, naturally, not everyone shares this opinion, and people have different experiences in the program. 
 

yes, this may be true of other places, but it doesn’t mean it’s less true of Mcgill. I’m talking about McGill… save the whataboutisms…
 

no, it’s not irresponsible to openly criticize and name the problems. It’s irresponsible  to romanticize this program.

I appreciate ppl’s well wishes. I’m doing fine professionally and academically. This isn’t about me being salty because my grades suck or because I didn’t get a good 2L summer gig… 

Transsystemia, in theory, is awesome and how law should be taught everywhere. But it’s also not simply about teaching cml and cvl together or side by side.
 

anecdotally, older more experienced students see the problems with this program far better than younger eager folks. 
 

The strike isn’t fun but it’s not profs’ fault. Admin is a disgrace. 
 

 

[GreyDude]

7 hours ago, LemonBee said:

I note my objection to this being called “McGill Malaise” 😂because, as I said above, I don’t appreciate the connotation of malaise here… my point is about the structural problems, not just how I feel. 

Yeah, @Renerik's choices aside, I'll take the blame for the title. The expression "a certain malaise" was originally intended to be a lighthearted response to "dumpster fire full of fireworks inside a gas station," (which I loved) in the original post. It was also supposed to acknowledge the apparent emotional weight behind the post, but I guess it might have come off as dismissive, instead. Sorry about that, if so.

I think I might have been misunderstood. I can't speak for others, but none of my questions or comments should be taken as argument or as meant to diminish the concerns being raised about McGill. I was trying (and apparently failing) to provide openings for further discussion by seeking details and reflecting on what I (thought I) already knew. For example, it's true that administrative problems can arise anywhere (I myself spent decades working for an institution with significant and ongoing administrative problems that have even made the news a few times), which led me to suggest that McGill might not be alone in this or that the problem might not originate with the law faculty specifically. It's also true that the administration there (I mean the university admin) is widely understood to be sclerotic when it comes to pretty much anything not originating in the hierarchy, so it could be worse than elsewhere (which is sort of the response I expected to get). There's no "whataboutism" here, and I apologize if it seemed that there was.

All the other comments were in a similar vein. I do not doubt your claims about the problems there, OP. But as someone with a long history of admiring McGill Law specifically and the university in general (admin aside), I would like to understand the ways it's going wrong. I have no interest in defending it, but also no interest in bashing it... at least not for sake of the bashing. And for what it's worth, I'm very happy at UdeM and would not switch if offered the chance.

Oh, and :

15 hours ago, carlmark said:

 LemonBee-- while I sympathize with your plight, your advice is still rather irresponsible.

I disagree with this. It is perfectly reasonable for a student at any particular school to recommend, or not, that people apply there. It might be discouraging for those who are newly admitted or thinking of applying, but if the situation is as OP says, then the first group will have to deal with it anyway and the second group might actually do well to stay away if they have options.  The faculty strike to one side (I think this labour issue would be settled or nearly so if admin were to negotiate in good faith), I would be curious to learn just how the problems being evoked affect the student experience directly.

Edited June 7 by GreyDude
unclear was I.

[Renerik]

7 hours ago, LemonBee said:

Wooah, when did this become its own thread? I note my objection to this being called “McGill Malaise” 😂because, as I said above, I don’t appreciate the connotation of malaise here… my point is about the structural problems, not just how I feel. 

14 minutes ago, GreyDude said:

Yeah, @Renerik's choices aside, I'll take the blame for the title. The expression "a certain malaise" was originally intended to be a lighthearted response to "dumpster fire full of fireworks inside a gas station," (which I loved) in the original post. It was also supposed to acknowledge the apparent emotional weight behind the post, but I guess it might have come off as dismissive, instead. Sorry about that, if so.

This new title is much less poetic...

[multilingualcat]

I just graduated from McGill Law. It's a school I recommend. Price tag is a bargained compared to U of T. 

[PzabbytheLawyer]

I've been away from McGill since 2019 now (seems like yesterday though, time flies!).

I definitely had some deep unhappiness with the administration. But, and having practised now (in private and government) and understanding just how little support McGill had, I blame it on a lack of funding. 

Other schools (not Quebec) had far better supports and programs for students (career development office, library staff, clinics, etc) from what I understood. McGill was always short on staff.

Sadly that won't improve any time soon, and in fact will get worse with the new Anglo tuition hate imposed by the province.

At the same time, I do think it's wildly worth it when compared to Canadian law schools tuition and what you can stand to earn as a lawyer in Canada, especially in anything that isn't BigLaw or BigLawBoutique adjacent. Tuition is completely out of touch with the reality of most lawyers' practices who work as soles or in small firms. It feeds into access to justice issues as lawyers get saddled with debt increasingly, and increase their rates en masse to compensate - rates for which ordinary people simply cannot afford.

The cost of living and A2J issue is separate, but connected. McGill at the end of the day, by far, provides the most versatile and reputable legal education in Canada per dollar spent.

I say that having often thought if I'd have been better off at UBC or U of T while I was at school. Now that I'm managing my finances, and being fortunate to make a fairly outrageous amount of money doing what I'm doing, I can't even imagine what I'd have been feeling with 200k debt as a u of t grad.

Edited June 18 by PzabbytheLawyer