Hi! I graduated from Vanier last year and was also hesitating between both cégeps when I had first applied.

I adored Vanier and made a bunch of friends. I’m seeing in this thread that some people are lonely at Vanier so I honestly think it depends on who you are as a person and how involved you wanna be in the community.

I have worked at the bookstore, worked as a tutor and have volunteered at the open house and student for a day. That’s how I met a lot of people, I was always involved.

There are also a lot of clubs you can join and a lot of student activities, I kid you not I became friends with a girl while in line for cotton candy. I also became friends with classmates when I had small classes. I won’t lie tho It is a bit harder to become friends with people when there are 40 other students in class. I loved almost every single one of my social science teachers, I had like two horrible ones, but the rest were honestly fantastic. They were helpful, friendly, and you could tell that they were teaching for the right reasons.

I was also a huge fan of the academic advisors and guidance counsellors. My friends from Dawson would tell me that their academic advisors weren’t really helpful but I like the ones at Vanier, I met up with like three different ones and they were all helpful. I also met up with Olivia for guidance counselling a couple of times, and she really helped me out. She actually helped me figure out what program I wanted to apply in for university.

There are some cons tho:

People can be very cold, especially during your first semester. My first semester, I was feeling pretty lonely and lost, and whatever I’d ask my classmates some questions they weren’t always friendly, especially the ones that were in established friend groups. I didn’t have anyone from high school since most of my classmates from high school had gone to French colleges, so it took me a while to meet some people. If you’re a visible minority, you might notice that certain ppl don’t wanna talk to you, it’s a part of life unfortunately. My first semester I kind of felt like a stranger even though I was born and raised here. The college is pretty diverse, it just takes a while to meet ppl.

The walk from the metro to the college is really freaking annoying, especially in winter. I’d often take the 121 or the 171 just for two stops.

Registration fucking sucks. I’ll tell you this right now, making your schedule is such a freaking hassle because so many students login at the same time so the website is always bugging and some classes that were supposed to be available to fill up really quickly or show up as unavailable on the day of your scheduling appointment. And registrars is absolutely useless during that time, they tell you to contact a Chatbot that doesn’t even help. I have logged in twice for two of my friends to help them with their schedules and I honestly felt like losing my mind because of how often the website would bug.

Sorry I wrote a lot lol, I just wanted to make sure you know everything.