Differences (2014)

For starters, Maynooth University has around 8,000 – 9,000 students. Concordia University has 45,954. Those numbers alone should demonstrate to you the huge difference in the size of these two universities.

Maynooth is in a small, university town in County Kildare. Concordia is in a huge Canadian city, right in the middle of everything. While both universities have two campuses, to get from one to the other in Maynooth all you need to do is cross the street, but at Concordia it requires you to take the shuttle bus, a 20 minute journey between the two campuses.

I love Maynooth and it’s small size and sense of community, but I am really enjoying experiencing another kind of university setting and being part of a much larger community.

I also find classes different here at Concordia. First of all, they are a lot longer to what I’m used to. My classes are about 2 hours and 45 minutes long, compared to the 1 hour lectures at home. The upside to this is there’s more time for discussion and things other than listening to lectures, which makes it more interesting and helps the time go by a bit quicker.

Assessment is also different. At home, there is generally one essay and one final exam as assessment. Here, assessment is usually broken up into class contribution, a midterm exam, an essay and a final exam. It feels like a lot more work to me, but most people who I’ve mentioned this to think our way at home adds a lot more pressure because you’re dependent on doing well on just two things.