Overall, my experience of McGill University was positive.

In terms of teaching, there were many approachable and inspiring lecturers who came from a range of studies and therefore I was introduced to challenging and out-of-the-box thinking. I would have liked there to have been more support at the beginning in terms of how to approach university work as opposed to school work, but I quickly got the hang of it thanks to the helpful and timely feedback from lecturers. My programme (Honours Art History) was as challenging as I expected it to be, but I received help from lecturers who guided me on how to tackle longer research essays and were consistently offering feedback. I really liked how the programme was extremely flexible and you could decide on changing your major basically whenever you wanted in the first two years.

It being such a big university, and being an international student, I was afraid of how I might find friends and societies, but the student life support for freshman was amazing. There are so many welcome activities, like Frosh, and I made friends very quickly from all over the world. The dorm-style, catered accommodation in upper Rez also helped on that front.

Montreal as a city is so vibrant and international. I loved how the campus is embedded in the city, right in the middle of downtown, but also in walking distance to all the cute neighbourhoods, bars and restaurants of the more ‘hippie’ Plateau area. It was as easy to find things to do off-campus as it was on. My favourite thing to do on the weekends was rent a car and drive to the nearest ski hill where I skied with my friends all day and was back in the city in the evening.

I would 100% recommend McGill to anyone looking to make friends from around the world and develop an international perspective, and to receive a broad education with lots of flexibility.