Simon Fraser University (reviews)

I had a great time at SFU. After touring UBC and seeing how friends felt about going there, I wanted to be somewhere that I could avoid frat houses, and not feel like I was going to school in a small town. SFU is a place where you can focus with fewer distractions, because it is so isolated from everything else. The educational quality is just as high as UBC.

Studying in the School of Communications seemed basic at first but as the years progressed the more challenging the material got. In addition to that, the subject of study became all the more interesting and thoughtful.

If you choose the good professors, you will have a good experience. SFU has a better program than some other universities in that you can apply to coop earlier because you can choose what major you are doing earlier. However, SFU’s grading system does tank your grade a little because it does it by letter grade and not percentage, meaning that if you want to convert from letter grade to percentage, you have to round down to the lowest percentage range of that letter grade.

SFU offers a lot of strong options. The co-op program is excellent for students who want more hands-on experiences, honours programs for academic focus, and exchange/study abroad programs.

As a Communication student, the program was very theory-heavy. Many courses focus on critical analysis of media, cultural contexts, and communication theory, so if you like how mass media, power, and society intersect, this program is a is for you! It’s not as skills-based as some people might expect, but there are some upper-level classes that offer more applied, hands-on learning alongside the theory. I like that SFU has three campuses. While most Communication classes are on the Burnaby campus, some are offered downtown, and I like the mix of online and in-person options. The faculty also includes many incredible professors from diverse academic and professional backgrounds.

While I can’t speak for the other faculties, I would definitely recommend SFU to students interested in critical theory in Communication!