Philosophy and transferring departments at McGill

Colleges and Universities A-Z McGill University
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Hey guys I’m offered a place in both Faculty of Arts and E-Engineering at McGill, and in order to know which Faculty I should commit to I have some following questions/ concerns:

  1. My first choice is Philosophy (one of my fav philosopher Charles Taylor teaches there although i know that as undergrad that prob doesnt mean much at all. lol) But yea how prestigious is a philosophy B.A. from McGill? What does McGill's philo classes focus on? (Because i know some, like UCLA, only teaches you logics, whereas others will get you heavily into continental stuff like Nietzsche as well as 20 century philosophers.)
  2. If to be practical and to secure a safe job for my life after graduation, i guess i'm also ok with studying e-engineering. I've taken AP Computer Science and felt real good about it. But at heart I love humanities, so my question is, to what extent can i take hum classes (Philosophy, Lit, French, Linguistics...) on the side of my e-engineering curriculum? Also, if I decide that e-engineering is not for me, till when do i have the option to transfer to another department? the end of my sophomore year?
  3. I prefer discussion / conference settings way better than big lectures, and thats my biggest concern at McGill. Are there any smaller classes offered there? Maybe more so in higher level courses? (I also have the option to go to small LACs such as Reed College or Haverford or Emory too)

For now that’s all. Thanks xD

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I was a McGill philosophy student during my two years there (2013 - 2015) so I can offer my two cents.

  1. No idea about prestige. I don't believe Prof. Taylor teaches classes anymore although I may be incorrect about that. Also, there seems to be a reasonable balance; lots of analytic, but there's a 300-level course on existentialism and a 400-level on phenomenology, both of which I've heard very good things about. If I had stayed at McGill I would have taken both.
  2. I had good friends in engineering, I believe it was electrical, and they told me they only had the option to take three Arts electives over their whole four years. I may be wrong about this, though, so check the website.
  3. Reed really is a much better place for small discussions. Large classes (not sure what the actual cutoff is but usually 100+) have conference sections led by TAs, and unfortunately I never had any kind of good discussion take place in one of those classes. Smaller courses (40-80) will not have conference sections, but meaningful discussion at that kind of class size is virtually impossible even with an engaged prof. Ethical Theory (PHIL 334) had us break into five person discussion groups for half of one class every week, which was great, but it wasn't as much discussion as I would have liked. I'm not aware of any other classes that do this.

For me, someone who got used to small group discussions in high school, I found McGill really lacking in this area. The problem is that high-caliber discussions require two things: a professor willing to conduct them, and a class size small enough that it’s doable. If either of these things are missing, good discussions don’t happen. More commonly, it’s the latter that’s the problem, since most profs would probably like to lead discussions and are great for conversations in office hours. However, I did take one philosophy course where the class size was conducive to discussions (usually about 15 people showed up) but where the prof was not willing to do anything but lecture and ask the occasional leading question.

For me, good discussions don’t start below 30 people tops, and you can only get away with a number that high because generally at least a third of the class isn’t saying very much. This kind of class size is pretty uncommon in philosophy at McGill. The best philosophy course I took was Philosophical Fundamentals (PHIL 301), which is a discussion-based seminar for Honours students that only had about 25 people in it. I don’t believe there are any others like it though.

Anyway if you have any other questions about philosophy at McGill, or anything else really, I’m happy to answer them. (I’m guessing you’re an American based on the schools you applied to. I am also an American, so I can answer any specific questions you might have about that experience if you want me to.)