University of Calgary

Great if you are in engineering, but forget having a well funded program if you are anywhere else. Undergrad professors are often ridiculously ill equipped to be teaching.

Disclaimer: This review is based on the buildings and the campus purely, and not on the teaching or any of the courses.
I’ve only ever gone to the U of C to pick people up, or write my LSATs. My experience with writing my LSATs makes me feel like the U of C badly needs an update to the buildings and campus. I guess I’ve been to a few universities that are older, so I’m used to U of A and UWO’s mature trees and well developed landscaping… so maybe I’ve been spoiled. But U of C just looks like a place to go to school and not somewhere you’d want to hang out in quad and study or pull all nighters in libraries.
Even with U of A being an older university, most of the buildings are updated and very technologically advanced. There are plug-​ins on the desks and long tables instead of those stupid writing surfaces you have to pull out of your arm rests. I guess every university campus is fairly confusing as an outsider, but I thought the layout, parking, and design of the campus seemed fairly illogical. I think they just need to work on some funding.

I’m a student at the UofC, and honestly, it’s pretty good all around. The campus is clean and well thought out, and staff and faculty are really talented at what they do. Furthermore, ucalgary library has a large collection and resources to find books not in its own collection. This is particularly advantageous for the avid researcher or graduate student. Overall I appreciate ucalgary and am happy to be a UofC student.

If I could give a negative rating, I would. Yet I am going to school here again. It’s complicated. Really complicated.
I first went to U of C for Environmental Management. I don’t have time to get into all the BS I had to endure in that program. Leave it, the Dean and I were on a first name basis, and it wasn’t due to me being a bad student. The profs are… beyond words! (not in a good way)
Finally finished that program and only because my husband made me finish my last class. I refused to go to graduation, just give me the damn paper.
I decide I want to enhance my career through Continuing Education (which isn’t Environmental, I never did anything with it), and sadly the best course selection (so I thought) was U of C. I registered for one class, as I don’t want to take on too much, while still working full time.
I always go early on Day 1, to try and find the class room and get settled. What they tell me is the classroom and campus was wrong, I’m stuck in a gross computer lab in the bowels of the EDC campus. I’m paying how much for this course… The prof is so dry it’s almost unbearable. Le sigh. I will finish as I want to do it, but it’s truly painful.
I won’t say I’ll never go to U of C again, as I keep going back, but it’s the only option I have. :(
Oh and I’ve called numerous times to try and talk to someone, as a bunch of classes I want to take have a prerequisite, but they don’t offer the beginner class… WTF how am I going to take other courses then, and no one has ever returned my calls.

One can only be subjective when assessing the quality of an institution of higher learning, especially at the post-​graduate level. I will not take the pitfall and use the word especially true because that would immediately make my response objective.
Enough with the semantics and accompanying BS (not to be confused with a Bachelor of Science Degree from the USA). An education is only as valuable as the effort the student is willing to put into. The higher the level the more this appears to be true. While completing the Graduate Project Management Program, I had plenty of opportunities to test this observation. Although this data is merely empirical, negating any chance to be objective, I concluded the more I dedication I gave to the quest for furthering my own knowledge and advancing the discipline through research, the greater the satisfaction I achieved in my studies. To this extent, I can state wihout qualification that the University of Calgary provided me a most excellent forum in which I fulfilled my goals. I came away with exactly what I wanted.
However, I can only give four stars. It is not because of the quality of the learning environment, but the constraints put on the access to the learning environment at the graduate level. The graduate departments in many faculties are averse to allowing students from other departments to take courses for credit. The Faculty of Law was one of the worst. A change of deans alleviated that and I was allowed to take advanced environmental law, the professor was the second most recent dean.
The Haskayne School of Business, even though a sponsor of the Project Management Program, would not allow PM students to expande their knowledge horizontally, especially at the 700 level of courses. If the course was PM oriented they had to let you register, if it was not then you either had to fight or forgo the class. Advanced accounting and finance courses were totally blocked yet many very senior project managers have responsibility for billion dollar budgets.
The Faculty of Environmental Design was the most liberal in allowing students in graduate programs in other departments to take their 600 and 700 level courses. All may take up to four courses without requiring special permission of the dean. I gorged myself on policy analysis, development, and environmental impact classes. They provided the most satisfaction during my two year sojourn at UofC.
Professors of note, in all departments, were Al Lucas (Law), George Jergeas (Project Management), Sascha Tsenkova and Bill Ross (Environmental Design), and Terry Rock (Strategic Management). I took a total of 11 graduate courses and none were inferior. I was given the opportunity to work on numerous faculty projects including editing books for George Jergeas, PM department head, and for Michael Mack, a visiting scholar in the Institute for Humanities. Funding was easily available and for this I had to proof read dissertations for fellow students.
I cannot speak for other programs but I highly recommend the University’s Graduate Project Management Program. You get to choose your own research projects rather than being a slave for your supervisor. These were two of the best years of my life.

Having just graduated from the University of Calgary with a BA in English and a perpetually changing minor, I suppose that I am now in a position to review it.
I loved my time spent at the University of Calgary, but I believe it has to do mostly with the department I studied in, and constantly being surrounded by creative types. Being in the arts, I often felt like a floaty hippie in the midst of soooserious business majors and engineering types, but the sense of «home» in my English lectures and the attitude of my professors always brought me back to earth when I wondered what the hell I was doing shifting around to a Victorian Literature course in moccassins when everyone was checking the stocks in suits at Scurfield Hall. Actually, looking back on it, my experience at the U of C has really just represented a microcosm of my whole entire life.
I believe there needs to be more of a focus on certain departments and less spending on others at the U of C, but I will not name any names. I also believe that providing more healthy environments and study spaces should take priority over adding mediocre food court options to their students. I am not a fan of the Harvey Digital Library and miss spending entire winter days hiding out in MacKimmie Hall Library, reading alllll of the first pressings of Kerouac novels instead of studying. In fact, I hate the HDL. It looks like the Facebook headquarters on the movie the Social Network, and I think really represents the U of C’s desire to catch up too quickly in some aspects (they actually really rushed and screwed up with the architecture the first time around which is why this library took so long to officially open), but remains dated in others.
My favourite place to study is in the atrium, even though the sitting nooks are deathly uncomfortable. It is in the Admin building, if I recall correctly, and is full of greenery and statues.
I also like how campus looks like Narnia in the winter, and is nice and pretty and green and quiet for spring and summer classes. The person who said the U of C has one tree is lying to you. Don’t worry.
(10÷30)

This university I think has only one tree. It is a very industrial place, and it was a very cold place to find myself in. The university personal were very short with me and disrespectful. Considering I was a visiting student, I really thought it would have been a much better experience.

This review is based on continuing education courses I have been taking over the past year. Like any class there are hits and misses, but I would say that in my experience the hits outweigh the misses. Some classes have been stellar, to the point where I won’t forget them. They bring in quality instructors, most of which seem to be around 40-​ish. This is perfect because I feel I can relate to the instructors and they are most certainly qualified to teach the course. I know it can be pricey, with the tuition, books and parking. However, remember that if you enroll in a certificate program you can likely claim the cost for courses and books on your taxes as a rebate. It really helps justify the cost.
If you take night courses don’t forget to park in the $ 5 parking lots versus the $ 25 parking lots.

I love the gym and the pool. Also the food court has a good variety. It’s the nicest campus. A good place to relax too and you can always study.

two words:
harvey weingarten.
actually, another two words:
modernist architecture.
ok, fifteen final words:
this place is tolerable in the summer, but we all know how long summer is…

In the summer, the University of Calgary comes alive, all greens and trees and landscaping. In the winter it is an icy hell-​hole. And it is always deserted on the weekends and evenings, except for Thursdays.
Haha, the U of C is my alma mater, so I spent a lot of time exploring it. The buildings are mostly 70s style — not quite an ancient house of learning, but charming in its own way nonetheless. There are several weird statues that we can only sort of appreciate, like the prairie chicken and the fire pit but even they add to the character of the campus.
It’s outside of downtown, but there is a train station and several buses that visit. There is also tons of parking. The information commons in the library stays open ²⁴⁄₇ during exams, and is open late otherwise. It is probably the single busiest area on campus. It is attached to most areas via a series of underground tunnels and +15s, so that lazy students don’t have to brave the freezing weather. That means that it can take a good twenty minutes to walk from the library to Mac Hall, even though they are very close together.
The campus has its ups and downs. I wasn’t always a huge fan of the layout and seating and smells in my time there, but they do their best to keep it up to date.

I was recently working a project where I had to visit all three major campuses in Calgary back to back. I’m talkin Mount Royal College, U Of C and SAIT. It took me an entire afternoon, but I went from one to the other exploring every inch of each campus.
My conclusion: The University Of Calgary is BY FAR the most amazing campus in Calgary. Compared to MRC and SAIT, it’s leaps and bounds better. The campus space is bigger, prettier and better laid out. The University of Calgary has a state of the art gym facility (most Olympians train here when they’re in town) and Mac Hall has recently been renovated and has an incredibly impressive food court. The business school program at U of C is known around the world and you can partake in some of the coolest extra-​curricular opportunities here (Ie. The Dalai Lama just visited the campus this week to hold a conference with U of C students).
Now let’s talk about education value. Let’s just say I had a couple of the best teachers I have EVER had here at the U of C. I got my undergrad degree here, and thanks to it, I’ve been able to move around from Calgary, to Toronto, to Chicago and then some.
I would recommend the U of C to anyone who is looking to further themselves professionally, personally, socially and mentally.
The University Of Calgary is where it’s at. Take my word for it.

The University of Calgary has an awesome campus — lots of trees, green space, and even a little pond. It’s spacious and close to lots of places — Market Mall, Northland Mall, Northhill Mall, Foorhills Hospital… and the c-​train stops right there.
Parking can get limited if there’s an event going on, so go early to get a parking spot. Be prepared to pay in the range of $ 3/​hour for parking if you don’t have a parking pass. (It’s easiest to pay by credit card.)

5 stars for the curriculum (yay for art students!), minus one star for Art Wolf.
Love,
Jepo.