McGill University

McGill’s Macdonald Campus, an oasis of green space in the midst of an urban environment, is home to the Faculty of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, the McGill School of Environment and the School of Dietetics and Human Nutrition. Students and faculty participate in research projects around the world, studying everything from the biodiversity of rainforests in Costa Rica to ethnobotany in Kenya and post-harvest engineering in India and China. Macdonald students also make use of on-campus facilities like the Morgan Arboretum, home to hundreds of species of plants, birds and animals, and Canadian research stations like the Gault Nature Reserve, designated a UNESCO biosphere reserve, on Mont St-Hilaire, Quebec. Other McGill field stations include the Axel Heiberg research station in Nunavut, the Sub-Arctic research station in Schefferville, Quebec, and the Molson Nature Reserve on nearby Ile Perrot. Macdonald’s hands-on learning philosophy means that students use many of these facilities starting in their first semester. The School of Dietetics and Human Nutrition teaches the fundamentals of nutrition and its impact on human health and disease. The curriculum includes the biological sciences, food systems, behavioural sciences, clinical nutrition and community nutrition at the local and international levels. A joint initiative of the Faculties of Science, Arts, and Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, the McGill School of the Environment provides a unique transdisciplinary approach to the study of environment. Students may earn a BSc or BA degree through one of the three faculties.

Established in 1843, the Faculty of Arts is one of the oldest in Canada and remains the largest at McGill, with more than 5,000 full-time students, 250 full-time professors, and courses in several hundred disciplines. The heart of the Faculty is the historic Arts building, at the core of McGill’s downtown campus. The Bachelor of Arts (BA) degree integrates the Humanities, Social Sciences, Languages, and a wide range of Interdisciplinary Studies into a coherent academic program. The BA is a degree that allows students to appreciate the interdisciplinary connections with the past in order to understand the present and prepare for a promising future. The Faculty of Arts at McGill is especially proud of its major and minor concentration programs known as the multi-track system. The system\'s numerous and varied combinations provide students with an unprecedented degree of flexibility and breadth of knowledge, and the opportunity to create an academic profile suited to their specific interests and career ambitions. Students also have the option of doing minor concentrations in other faculties. Myriad major and minor concentrations are also available, offering Arts students opportunities to explore issues from various perspectives. Among the unique programs offered by the Faculty are Canada’s only program in Medical Anthropology and the only Honours Economics program with a completely separate curriculum from the Major concentration. Within the Faculty of Arts, the School of Social Work offers professional training for community-based intervention in a wide area of social issues.

The name of the four-year program in Dentistry was recently changed to Doctor of Dental Medicine (DMD), reflecting the emphasis on oral health promotion and disease prevention that characterizes our new curriculum. The program was designed to emphasize the relationship between oral health and general health, and to respond to rapid changes in demographics, disease patterns and treatments, and technology. McGill educates “oral physicians” capable of providing comprehensive health care to patients. Students spend their first two years on the McGill campus, then transfer to the state-of-the-art McCall Undergraduate Dental Clinic at the Montreal General Hospital of the McGill University Health Centre (MUHC) for the last two years of the program. Students in the clinical years also rotate through other hospital departments. Students learn to manage complex problems that are rarely seen in traditional dental school clinics. This program increases clinical experience, particularly in hospital dentistry and dentistry for physically and medically compromised patients. The Faculty of Dentistry is involved in innovative research in three main areas: Pain Research and Management, Oral Rehabilitation, Psychosocial Research, and Hard Tissue Biology. The Jamson T.N. Wong Laboratories for Bone and Periodontal Research opened in the fall of 2002. A joint initiative with the Faculty of Medicine, this state-of-the-art facility houses advanced instrumentation for the study of hard tissues in the skeleton and oral cavity. The new laboratories also support McGill’s interest in nanoscience, nanotechnology and biotechnology by expediting the development of new-generation biomaterials and biosensors.

Since 1857, the Faculty has prepared many distinguished teachers. Over time, teachers’ roles within the school and society have evolved. Today’s students have the opportunity to practice teach in a variety of settings where they benefit from the mentoring of expert teachers across Quebec, completing 700 hours of practical student teaching by the time they graduate. The upcoming retirement of legions of teachers will mean many new teaching opportunities across the country for Education graduates. The faculty offers students many unique opportunities. The Faculty’s Office of First Nations and Inuit Education fosters close partnerships with various Aboriginal communities and institutions in Quebec and Nunavut. The Seagram Sport Science Centre (SSSC) houses laboratories for research, teaching and testing in Exercise Physiology, Biomechanics, Pedagogy, Psychology of Sport and Physical Activity, Motor Learning and Motor Performance. The Evolution Education Research Centre, involving research professors from McGill and Harvard universities, advances the teaching of biological evolution. The Faculty’s International Office organizes developmental projects, conferences and seminars on international and national education-related topics. The McGill Journal of Education, published three times a year, covers major issues in education from a variety of perspectives – practical and theoretical, personal and collective.

Established in 1871, McGill’s Faculty of Engineering has three traditional areas of excellence: professional programs, research and community interaction. The Faculty includes Departments of Chemical, Civil, Electrical and Computer, Mechanical, Mining, Metals and Materials Engineering, plus the Schools of Architecture and Urban Planning. With 25 percent of students originating from 77 other countries, the Faculty offers a unique learning environment that helps prepare students for any cultural adjustments an international career may require. Exchange programs give undergraduates an opportunity to study at selected universities in Quebec, the U.S., Europe or Mexico. Co-op programs give McGill Engineering students on-the-job experience, helping them develop communication and people skills as well as sufficient practical knowledge of the field to let them choose an area in which to build a lifelong career. The Faculty operates an Internship Year Program for Engineering and Science (IYES), in which participants spend eight to 16 months in an industrial environment, returning to McGill for the last two semesters of their academic program. At the Centre for Intelligent Machines, students and faculty work on legged locomotion and dynamic manipulation. CIM researchers are part of the Institute for Robotics and Intelligent Systems (IRIS), a federal government Centre of Excellence. Established in 1896, the School of Architecture is one of the oldest on the continent. Its philosophy is straightforward: to encourage the pursuit of excellence in the practice of architecture by developing competence in both the art and science of building design and construction.

McGill’s Faculty of Law grounds students in the fundamental principles of civil law, common law, air and space law and comparative law, while fostering an openness to diverse legal cultures through teaching and research. Professors are expert in both civil and common law traditions. As part of the curriculum, the Faculty has pioneered trans-systemic teaching of civil and common law in selected courses. In addition, the Faculty boasts a number of experts in international law. This depth gives students a wide choice of courses in public and private international law, including human rights and international business law. The Faculty is also actively engaged in the reform of law and legal institutions at home and abroad, most recently in Russia, Vietnam and Ukraine. McGill graduate and undergraduate students have the opportunity to get involved in these initiatives as researchers and project coordinators. The International Human Rights Internships Program gives students the opportunity to apply their legal education and develop a commitment to the defence of fundamental human rights. Internship sites have included Sri Lanka, Rwanda, Pakistan, and Cambodia. The Legal Clinic Course gives students an opportunity to enrich their legal education through practical work experience in law. Students work in various community organizations and legal clinics giving legal information and assistance to socially disadvantaged individuals and groups. Nearly half the Faculty of Law’s students volunteer their time, helping about 8,500 clients a year. Those with a taste for more active lawyering can get involved in the Advocacy Program.

McGill was the first university in Canada to offer commerce courses as part of the regular curriculum. Today, the Faculty of Management, widely recognized as Canada’s leading international business school, is industry-driven, innovative and international in focus, with close ties to the business community. Most faculty members have lived, studied and worked abroad; professors are involved with such Faculty research centres as the Centre for International Management Studies and the Dobson Centre for Entrepreneurial Studies, as well as being active in consulting and other international joint ventures with industry. Core courses in the first year provide the quantitative, qualitative and communication skills students need through applied theory and practice across the major management disciplines. To meet their personal interests and career goals, students can choose from three management streams of study: general management; BCom with majors or with honours; and the international management stream. The International Student Exchange Program offers exchange opportunities with more than 30 of the world’s leading business schools. Partners have included universities in Austria, Brazil, Mexico, Spain, Thailand, and Turkey. Summer Abroad Program participants can take courses overseas and gain international experience – a powerful asset in the job market. Management courses are taught by McGill faculty in such regions as Brazil, Italy, Greece, Singapore and Japan. Internship opportunities with prominent firms such as Bell Canada, Bank of Montreal, Pratt & Whitney Canada, William M. Mercer and Petro Canada allow students to gain valuable work experience.

Medicine, McGill’s original faculty when the University was founded in 1821, has a long history of extraordinary achievement. Doctors Wilder Penfield, William Osler, Heinz Lehmann and Margaret Somerville are just four of the respected names associated with McGill over the years. The medical curriculum recognizes the importance of a solid information base and a multidisciplinary approach to medical education through the integration of clinical knowledge and basic science. Direct contact with patients begins early in the curriculum and provides students with a rich and varied clinical experience. Much of the teaching takes place in a small group setting, which provides individual attention and optimizes the learning experience. McGill faculty and students are in the forefront of medical research in many areas, including the genetics of psychiatric disease, host resistance to infections, AIDS, aging, cancer, biotechnology and neuroscience. Clinical facilities include six major teaching hospitals, seven specialty teaching hospitals and nine research centres and units. The School of Nursing offers two pathways to a professional career in nursing: the three-year, full-time Bachelor of Science in Nursing, and the Bachelor of Nursing, designed for RNs with a diploma in nursing, which may be taken full-time in three years or on a part-time basis over a longer period. The School of Physical and Occupational Therapy offers a client-centred curriculum that teaches students to help patients rehabilitate and reintegrate into real-life situations. Students develop professional behaviour and values that prepare them for a range of settings, from hospitals to community care.

Canada’s largest and finest music school offers a comprehensive program that thoroughly prepares students for the demands of professional life. Unique performance opportunities and superior academic programs offer an environment for unlimited learning. Students who continue professionally in music will have received the best training available – at a fraction of the cost for comparable institutions. Students who choose to pursue other career options will leave McGill with an outstanding undergraduate education and many transferable skills. The Faculty is renowned for its orchestral, choral, opera, jazz, chamber and early music ensembles. Staff and students present some 500 concerts and events each year. The Strathcona Music Building currently houses two concert halls, an extensive performance materials library, many studios and labs for electronic music production and research in music education, music technology and sound recording, plus classrooms, studios and practice space. An adjacent new facility under construction will house state-of-the-art spaces for performance, rehearsal and recording, as well as the Marvin Duchow Music Library and studio offices. McGill’s Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in Music Media and Technology (CIRMMT), a world leader in Internet broadcasting, is an inter-faculty, inter-university initiative. It provides a place for music research that pools expertise from such diverse fields as neuroscience, respirology, psychology, engineering, acoustics, and sound recording. McGill also has an internationally renowned Sound Recording program with strong links to industry, and its own in-house record label – McGill Records.

From volcanoes to computer visualization, there’s a lot going on in Science. Fourteen departments, large and small, offer programs leading to the Bachelor of Science degree. They share a commitment to providing outstanding facilities for teaching and research. Science at McGill is a hands-on discipline where theory and practice meet, with ample opportunities for fieldwork, research-based independent studies courses and cross-disciplinary initiatives, such as the McGill School of Environment. Science students have an opportunity to get involved in structuring their own education. From the McGill Subarctic Research Station in Schefferville, to the Gault Nature Reserve on Mont St. Hilaire, to the Bellairs Research Institute in Barbados, or on site during the Panama Field Study Semester, McGill facilities, on campus and around the world, give students an opportunity to get their feet wet in their chosen discipline. Learning is not confined to the classroom, as faculty and students benefit from the rich resources of the Redpath Museum, along with the Lyman Entomological Museum and the University Herbarium. The Panama Field Study Semester (PFSS) expands students’ understanding of the environment and culture of a Latin American society. The School of Computer Science is concerned with understanding the many facets of computation, from pure theory to hands-on applications. Instruction is provided in all areas of computer science, including the analysis of algorithms, the study of computer architecture, compilers and operating systems, the simulation of networks, the study of software engineering, and bioinformatics.