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 I was a student at Concordia University's John Molson School of Business, where I earned my Bachelor of Commerce, major Marketing. Overall, it was good program. However, there are a few quirks and there are some things that could be better. The following are some of my observations about the program I was in:
- Perception is reality. This is a basic principle of marketing that is obvious but unfortunate. Concordia may have the better commerce program, but McGill has the international reputation. Therefore, McGill graduates get the better job offers, the better networking opportunities, and the better value for their degrees. These days, a Concordia degree is barely worth the paper that it’s printed on. Which is too bad, seeing as how I worked really hard for three years to earn mine. Part of this is due to inadequate marketing of the Concordia and JMSB brands, and part of it is CSU sabotage. Which brings me to my next point . . .
- The CSU is evil. They're a bunch of power-hungry, evil, extreme left, totalitarian, communist freaks who wouldn't live in the real world if it smacked them upside the head. I could go on all day about this one. But I won't. Check out csusucks.org for more information.
- Finding an English-speaking teacher is increasingly rare. While I'm all for diversity, it seems to me that the job of a teacher is to clearly communicate information to students. A teacher who spends twenty minutes trying to get out a word in English is probably not accomplishing this objective very well. Of the thirty classes I took at Concordia, only fourteen of my profs spoke English as a first language. Most of the others had quite good English, but there were a few in there who were simply unintelligable.
- Finding women profs is even rarer. Of thirty classes, I only had seven female profs. Seven! And four were in my first semester. While that probably has something to do with my field of study, and complaining about it probably makes me one of those left-wing communist wackos I love to hate, it does ring of a little injustice, don't you think?
- Overuse of PowerPoint. Is it just me, or does Concordia Commerce have some sort of hidden deal with Bill Gates, promising to brainwash all incoming commerce students into relying heavily on the PowerPoint presentation software? Not only do students make a zillion presentations with the stuff a semester, but the teachers rely on it way too much. Technology in classrooms should be a tool, not a teacher-replacement. Many teachers get the PowerPoint notes on each textbook chapter from the teacher's edition, and simply click through them each class. Why bother going to class? Does it even occur to these teachers that they're making their own jobs obsolete?
- High prices of textbooks. This one is the ultimate scam. Every semester, practically, a new textbook edition comes out, forcing students to pay often over a hundred dollars per book. Then, at the end of the semester, if they're lucky enough to find a buyer, they can sell the books used at less than half the original price. What a lousy investment! Finance students who buy textbooks should automatically fail their courses.
- If I hear the terms "Technology", "Globalization", or "Cross-Cultural Communication" one more time, I'll scream. Okay, we get it already. These are issues in business. We got it since the first business class in the first semester. I don't see why every teacher in every class has to throw around these buzzwords like there's no tomorrow.
- Speaking of technology, it never works. Why do the PowerPoint machines never hook up properly? Why is nothing ever on FirstClass like it's supposed to be? Why do teachers spend half the class-time setting up? For a department that loves the word "technology" so much, they seem to be having some serious problems keeping up.
- Way too many core courses. Yes, it's important to get a broad overview of business. But with fourteen core courses required for every commerce student, there's such a thing as overkill. Most of these courses are boring and repetitive. And it's no secret that some majors get the short end of the stick. There are two accounting cores, two finances, three decision sciences and MIS courses, several general management, but only one marketing. After suffering through courses such as production operations management, MIS, and financial accounting, I'm realizing why so many people choose McGill, where you can custom-design your courses.
- Bureaucracy sucks. This one's not strictly about the Commerce faculty, but about Concordia (and, I'd suspect, other major universities) in general. To do one simple task, the average student can expect to be sent to five or six different departments. Oh, and everything - everything - has a form and a fee. No getting around that. You know there's even a fee to graduate? Amazing but true.
That being said, I did enjoy much of what Concordia Commerce is all about. There were quite a few good teachers. The small class sizes helped, as did the fact that it was very rare to be taught by a TA. And I like how students could go back and forth between campuses, getting both the downtown and the small-campus feel of university. I have no doubt that I received a good education. But those quirks drove me nuts sometimes!
To read more about Concordia’s John Molson School of Business, visit their site.
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