Simon Fraser University (Canada)

Date: Mar 21 2010
Major: Other (This Major's Salary over time)
Hmmm. I already posted this once at it disappeared. Here we go again.

I'm a mature student who has taken courses at 5 different BC post-secondary institutions at different times in my life (and I'm an A student, so this isn't sour grapes). I can say, without hesitation, that SFU is absolutely the worst educational experience I have ever had. Never have I attended an institution where so many teachers are unqualified to teach their subjects and where so many university classes are closer to the level of highschool classes - to say nothing of the overall university culture, which involves treating grown-up university students as if they were 12. Among the "highlights":

A second year course professor will dock grades if you don't choose a variety of sources (ie: journal articles, books, web, interviews, etc.) for your research. It doesn't matter if you can most-thoroughly research your topic using one or two types of sources. Why is this? Becaise he wants you to prove to him that you know how to write footnotes for these different types of sources.

A second year professor docks grades if your cell phone rings in class, if you're late for tutorial or if you hand an assignment in 1 minute after the start of class. This same prof, with a straight face, assigns a mere two 750 word papers, one of which involves writing a memo to the Prime Minister in the voice of a warring states philosopher.

A first year communications prof has written his own text book with a chapter on an industry I've worked in for 20 years. It reads like the unsynthesized collection of random facts that a lazy 12-year-old would hand in in highschool. It is completely wrong, factually, and so terribly written that it stands as evidence that educational standards were just as bad in the '60s as people claim they are now.

A large number of campus businesses don't take credit cards. If you ask them why, they'll say it's because they don't want to encourage students to get into debt. (How 'bout some customer service?)

Critical thinking is completely absent at SFU. You'll be lucky if you get a chance to write a paper that involves anything more than regurgitating the professor's opinion on things. Some professors I've had seem incapable of critical thought themselves.

If you complain, you will likely be told

this is only a (insert year of course here) year course

- which suggests that SFU officially considers it OK to rip you off until you've done at least a couple of years of uni. Don't try to get around it by going straight into 3rd and 4th year courses, though. They won't let you do that either.

If you are a serious student that's looking for an opportunity to really learn and research and debate subjects, stay away from this school.

I found UBC and Thompson Rivers to be far far superior.