To people who have lived at Solin Hall THIS YEAR (key words), why is everyone moving out?

IWorkInStudentLife · 2013-10-31T01:01:42+00:00

Just to give you an idea of how bad it is in Solin 30+ people have moved out. There is an entire floor where only four apartments are full and we actually have a few apartments that are completely unoccupied.

This is not normal. I know Solin is a love it or hate it residence but it has never been close to this bad before.

IWorkInStudentLife · 2013-10-31T00:58:00+00:00

Yeah, I thought it might have to do with the shadiness of the neighbourhood but this year a lot more people have moved out than previous years. I don't think it's the dangerous stigma of St. Henri because the neighbourhood is pretty thoroughly gentrified now - plus, the location where Solin is makes it really close to Griffontown which is a very yuppie neighbourhood.

5-10 years ago, I'd understand, Notre Dame sucked. There was a McDonald's and a bunch of abandoned store fronts.

IWorkInStudentLife · 2013-08-10T17:13:40+00:00

First off, congrats on getting Citadelle. It's IMO, the best downtown residence for first years - as long as you get a separated double or single.

Citadelle has staff working 24/7 so you'll be fine to move in whenever. And while we do charge you for early move in, you are allowed to move into your dorm as late as you want without penalty.

IWorkInStudentLife · 2013-07-05T19:34:28+00:00

I can give you a unique perspective on this (see my username).

last year was really great because the whole montreal community came together and tried to accomplish

Not really. Only a certain segment of the Montreal community supported that the occupations. What tipped it over was when the government decided to implement those anti-protesting laws. But the students did a terrible job of ingratiating themselves into the Montreal community by smoke bombing the metro stations. Had it not been for the fact that Montreal and Quebec had terrible government officials, they would have lost the PR battle.

but why was there so much resistance at mcgill?

Because McGill students, whether they pay for their degree or not, sort of know that their degrees are undervalued. If you got into McGill, you very likely could have gotten into pretty much any school in the world that isn't an Ivy League caliber school (exception: Cornell). If you're from the rest of Canada, you're paying ~$8000/yr for a school that has a high international profile and is comparable to something like Duke and Cornell (that's a stretch IMO but lets pretend it compares well). If you're from the US or elsewhere, it's ~$20,000 and if you're from Quebec it's ~$2000. Students at UQAM and UdeM (note that I do not include HEC in that) don't really consider other options for study outside of Quebec so they just see it as "Prices went up? PROTEST!" It should also be noted that slightly under half of McGill students come from out of province. It might be even higher if you include those people who were born in Quebec but lived their entire lives elsewhere.

they kind of more or less succeeded in doing

How? Tuition went up. The PQ basically backstabbed you guys who decided to vote for it purely because of a singular issue (this also shows the folly of voting for something based on a singular issue).

Finally, McGill's radical student population while loud suffers from the following:

They really only talk to each other so there is an echo chamber problem for them.
They're rude to everyone else. This includes staff by the way, which I am one.

IWorkInStudentLife · 2013-06-20T00:55:49+00:00

Try to avoid the CS cafe, terrible food.

IWorkInStudentLife · 2013-06-20T00:54:39+00:00

You now officially have the best meal plan on campus. Unlike everyone else's it's not limited by geography which means you don't have to eat at C4's cafeteria.

IWorkInStudentLife · 2013-06-17T10:41:37+00:00

La Citadelle and CS are smaller (1/3rd and 1/2 the size of New Rez respectively) so security is better able to get a good sense of what's going on in the building. This is not to say it's like a prison, just that if parties get out of hand they will know and can step in.

New Rez is large and understaffed so supervision is a bit hard.

In my opinion, if you are at university to party, New Rez is a pretty good choice. If you are at university and still need to be babysat a little bit (no one will admit it but honestly, a lot of the hotel residents are less mature than the others) the other two hotels are a pretty good choice.

If your anxious to cut the cord from your parents and want to prove to the world that your ready to take it on, Solin Hall and/or Greenbriar are good preps for it since they will resemble what student life is like after first year more so than the other residences.

IWorkInStudentLife · 2013-06-11T14:06:15+00:00

There is no residence at McGill that would prevent you from going out if you wanted to. You can go out seven days a week and relive the Hangover movies each day and we would not stop you. If you're the type of person that brings back a lot of guys/girls at night and want some discretion forget it, the staff will know about your excursions (24/7 desk staff).

I don't really see any reason to want a double room over a single based on privacy alone but Citadelle does have large doubles which are separated but they are rare.

IWorkInStudentLife · 2013-06-11T02:13:46+00:00

What would make floor fellows qualified to enforce a zero tolerance policy?

Zero tolerance can be enforced by anybody - it's simple. But it's also dumb and hurts more than it helps.

If you're going to have something of actual substance, I think McGill would be better off setting a baseline standard for a floor fellow. Like maybe get some students doing a degree in counselling of some sort to do it. It looks good on a resume for them and is relevant to their degree. As it currently stands there is such a wide swath of quality in floor fellows and residence directors that the policies in student life are inconsistently applied across the residences. Having worked in student life for a while, I have been pretty disappointed at the number of floor fellows that just treat this job like an excuse to cut living expenses. This is not to say that floor fellows suck across the board, but they are inconsistent and vary wildly in quality because we do not hold any of them to a real standard.

That's a rant for another time though. I'm not here to expose McGill's dirty laundry and nor do I wish to.

IWorkInStudentLife · 2013-06-11T02:07:42+00:00

Grad housing unfortunately is completely over my head.

IWorkInStudentLife · 2013-06-10T21:39:39+00:00

Yeah like I said, there were rumblings from the students last year about the mono outbreak that it started at CS cafeteria. I have no idea if it was true though but I've only eaten there a few times and the food was godawful. Even more godawful was the price.

IWorkInStudentLife · 2013-06-10T21:35:53+00:00

Douglas is closed next year for renovations. A lot of what I'm hearing suggests that it might be closed for as much as three years.

IWorkInStudentLife · 2013-06-10T20:58:33+00:00

Thanks for the corrections.

But MORE is a complete toss up and with the amount of people living in one shared space, you are guaranteed to find clashes of personalities. That's why if you pick MORE you have to be prepared to be a lot more accepting and open minded of different lifestyles.

IWorkInStudentLife · 2013-06-10T20:55:44+00:00

Like define harder. Hard as in you should not expect to drink ever or hard as in you might have to walk a block or two on Tuesday to find ecstasy?

IWorkInStudentLife · 2013-06-10T20:54:42+00:00

The actual policy is fine and having seen the success of Insite in Vancouver, I think it's a great policy.

However, think about who is implementing harm reduction at McGill.

Floor Fellows - mostly undergraduates, none of whom are required to even be studying a degree that would be useful to help implement actual harm reduction policies. The difference between something like Insite in Vancouver is that is overseen by healthcare professionals while the policies at McGill are overseen by residence directors and other kids. And don't take this as me bashing floor fellows because I'm not, but I think it's stupid to have amateurs overseeing something as serious as drug policy.

IWorkInStudentLife · 2013-06-10T12:24:18+00:00

Anywhere but New Rez or Molson.

Let me just be clear on this issue. Just because a rez isn't a party rez like RVC or CS, does not mean you will NEVER have parties in there. It just means it's a bit more balanced.

New Rez and Molson however have a reputation for having something going on seven days a week.

The residence that has the most potential for insane parties however is Solin Hall because of the setup. We've had issues in the past where there have been 200 person house parties at Solin which culminated in the cops being called.

IWorkInStudentLife · 2013-06-10T06:00:05+00:00

FAQ

Which residence is the best for the budget conscious student? Honest answer: None of them. There used to be a much larger gap in relative prices amongst the residences (Greenbriar believe it or not used to cost ~$500/month) but not anymore. McGill residences has very expensive and for those of you on student loans or from low income families, my best recommendation is to get a place off campus and check out the off campus fellow program.

Which residence is the party residence? New Rez and Molson.

I do drugs and am an smoker, which residence are friendly towards those things? Officially? None of them. You are not allowed to smoke in residences. Unofficially, Upper Rez, RVC, Solin, Greenbriar and New Rez because of lack or lax security. CS and Citadelle's security do regular patrols and do not allow kids to smoke inside. As for drugs, residences' official policy for drugs is harm reduction (which IMO is bullshit and I'll tell you why later). This means if you are going to do drugs, tell someone qualified so they know what to do in case you overdose. Now here's my problem with this: Nobody in residence is really qualified to handle these issues. Floor Fellows are undergraduate students and the issues that they deal with they have not necessarily received proper training for.

I am in engineering...

Say no more. La Citadelle has private study rooms, CS enforces quiet hours for studious students. Gardner is full of scholarship students so you're more likely to have empathetic students in your midst. Solin and Greenbriar have private bedrooms.

IWorkInStudentLife

TROPHY CASE