The University of Guelph (Canada)

Date: Dec 09 2014
Major: Mechanical Engineering (This Major's Salary over time)
Date of Review: Tuesday, December 9th, 2014

University: University of Guelph in Guelph, ON

Faculty: Engineering

Program: Mechanical Engineering

Year of Program: Third year

Reviewer's interest in Mechanical Engineering: High interest in the discipline with a lot of interest in the background and theories of engineering concepts and their applications

This review is mostly for Mechanical Engineering at the University of Guelph, and also generally for the University as a whole.

I try to point out the advantages and disadvantages in engineering and the university overall. I tried also to point out some important disadvantages in the Mechanical Engineering program at the University of Guelph. I described the biggest disadvantages at the end of my review.

Advantages:

Projects give the students hands on experience, which can be useful for practical applications and work assignments with employers

In many engineering courses, there are biweekly small quizzes that may help the engineering student practice some of the material. The quizzes; however, are MUCH easier than exams and they do not represent the level of difficulty in exams.

The program is quite broad which gives students a variety of knowledge about several engineering applications

Much of the lab equipment and the engineering facilities are brand new, making them easy and pleasant to use.

Professors post notes and assignments online

Many professors are friendly, welcoming, and helpful; while a few are not very generous with help, and not very welcoming

The campus is quite beautiful with a lot of trees and a variety of older architecture. There are also very modern buidlings with very nice interiors, such as the Science Complex.

Guelph is a clean city, and safer than most big cities; although bigger cities have more resources and more furniture stores, and storage facilities, or Uhaul, etc.

There is free two hour parking that is very close to the University campus; however, they give fines sometimes exceeding $30.00 if you park in a two hour zone for 2.5 hours or more.

Parking is free on campus after 5 or 6 PM.

Food is good on campus; however it is expensive, but you can save 10% by paying with the Guelph student card.

Disadvantages:

High tuition. University of Guelph is one of the most expensive universities in Canada. Each semester in Engineering costs more than $6000 (six thousand), and one full year costs more than $12,000. Other programs in agriculture and arts and science are cheaper. If you take only three courses per semester, you pay about $2000. If you take four or more, you pay at least $6000. You pay by semester and not by course.

Food is quite expensive on campus; however, you can save at least 10% of the food cost on campus by using the student card to pay for meals.

The buildings are mostly not connected. In the winter, Guelph is usually windy as much of Southern Ontario is. In January, it can get really cold on the campus and the students have to walk outside in the cold wind. There are no tunnels or skywalks connecting the buildings. Many lectures take place at the War Memorial Hall and the building is very far from the engineering building.

Engineering professors at the University of Guelph usually do not provide practice exams before final exams. There are lots of other universities in Canada that provide lots of material and practice exams before the final exam of the course.

There are very few marked assignments in engineering courses. There are mainly marked lab reports. The engineering practice problems are one of the most useful tools to understand the problems and the course concepts. Since they are not marked, they don't get handed in, making it easy to procrastinate when the student is tired during a busy week. The practice problems are usually left to the end, almost right before exams. It, then, becomes difficult to do them quickly and effectively; making the student less ready for final exams.

The BIGGEST disadvantage, at least for me: LITTLE TIME TO STUDY, due to:

1. Courses are combined. First year statics and kinematics, second year Fluid mechanics, third year thermodynamics are combined into one course for each subject. Each one of the mentioned subjects is normally taken over two courses at other universities (i.e. Fluid Mechanics is two courses at most canadian universities, and only one course at the University of Guelph). This results in very fast paced progression through course material. The professors usually struggle to finish all the course material, and the students struggle.

2. Projects are frequent, lengthy, and time consuming with long reports due at the end of the term.

3. The semester is short, only 12 weeks, compared to other 13 week semesters at the University of Alberta, University of New Brunswick, University of Calgary, McGill University, etc.

4. There is no reading week during the fall term, just a short fall break that consists of an additional day off after thanksgiving Monday. Other Canadian universities, like the University of Saskatchewan, provide a full reading week in the fall term. There is also no big break before exams start, only a weekend. The course finishes on Friday and exams start Monday morning. The University of Waterloo gives at least a full week off, for the students to study and review course material, between the time when classes are done and the time when exams start.

The machine design course in the Mechanical Engineering program has been difficult during this semester, fall 2014. Dr. Marwan Hassan, the course professor gave a really lengthy and difficult final exam with a lot of specific details and calculations. The TAs for the course were not helpful and did not answer emails regularly. It was usually hard to get help from TAs for this course. In other courses, TAs have been much better. The course professor did not provide practice exams and did not do review sessions before the very challenging final exam.

Support from Prof and TAs has been bad this fall 2014. It has been the worst semester for me in both this university and other universities.