A Review of Queen's Commerce

Hello!

I am a Queen's Commerce student entering my third year, and I was recently very inspired and impressed by the post made about a review of Mac Software Engineering, and it made me want to make one for Queen's Commerce. Hopefully this can also decrease the number of posts made that ask about the QC program, because I see the same questions being asked every day.

Stats:

- As per this ranking done by Bloomberg, Queen's is ranked 2nd in Canada for undergraduate business programs *edit: as someone mentioned, these rankings are different on every website and are often kinda odd because they use very random criteria to rank them...take them with a grain of salt! Also, I do not personally agree with all of the rankings from the link, I do however agree with their first and second place rankings which are Ivey and QC, and this is pretty universally agreed upon.

- The average starting salary for a QC grad is over $61,000. This is a BASE salary. Be careful when comparing schools because some schools (Ivey for example) report salaries but include extra factors like signing bonuses, which will increase this number.

Cost

- Tuition is $17,700 per year, with slight changes each year.

- The price is justified because of the exceptional quality of professors, the state of the art building we study in, and of course the reputation of the program, which can take you very far

First-Year Courses:

In first year you will take 10 courses, which are all mandatory courses that are picked for you:

• Business Management (general business course)

• Managing Work and Teams

• Introduction to Mathematical Analysis for Management (Calculus)

• Introduction to Financial Accounting

• Introduction to Management Accounting

• Introduction to Marketing

• Organizational Behaviour

• Managerial Statistics (similar to data management in hs)

• Principles of Economics

• Business Communications (resume building, interview skills, how to write professional emails, creating a LinkedIn Page, etc.)

Courses After First-Year

In second year you have 9 required courses and must take 2 arts/science electives (this is where you'll take your first finance courses, if you were wondering why those were missing from first year). After this, in 3rd and 4th year, you only have 2 required courses total, therefore giving you lots of time to take courses in the field that interests you. The 4 most popular career paths at QC are accounting (21%), finance (19%), consulting (18%), and marketing (9%). Other paths include sales, ops/logs, tech, HR, etc.

Internships

QC is not a co-op program. This means you must find summer internships on your own and there is no guarantee that you’ll get them. We do however have an incredible career centre that is incredibly helpful in finding jobs. Go see them at the start of your second year to talk about how to search for jobs.

Most students will not have an internship after 1st year, as many companies are not interested in hiring a first-year student. After this, many students get internships at all the top firms across Canada.

Not having a co-op program really does not stop Queen's Commerce students from getting exceptional internships every summer.

This goes without saying, but QC students also place very well after grad for full-time jobs. Many students get asked to start full time from the company they interned at after third year.

Extracurricular Involvement

Queen's Commerce has over 40 clubs to join. You can also attend events and conferences that are held by these clubs which provide great networking opportunities. Getting on a club is competitive because there are limited spots, but most people will be on at least 1 by second year. There are also hundreds of clubs to join outside of commerce, which I encourage you to look into.

Exchange

QC has an exceptional exchange program, and most students will go on exchange in 3rd year for 1 semester. There are a ton of school options in Europe, Asia, Australia, etc. The application process involves an interview, a decision matrix made by you, an essay question, and also takes into account your GPA. Then you will be placed at a school, with most people getting one of their top 5 choices.

Queen's Commerce vs. Western Ivey

I had to touch on this because I get asked this question often.

- Both programs are exceptional and have great reputations in Canada. In my opinion, one is not necessarily better than the other, they're just different

- Queen's is a 4-year program whereas Western is the 2+2 style

- Queen's is a more traditional style of learning whereas Ivey uses the Case method

**It is up to you which program style you prefer. Neither gives you a great advantage over the other, so pick the school where you think YOU would excel.

Is it worth going to QC if you don’t want to go into finance/consulting?

In my opinion, yes. While you can enter less competitive fields like marketing, sales, etc. from almost any university, this doesn’t mean that you have access to the same jobs/ opportunities/alumni network. Queen’s has a great reputation that is very helpful in the job search process, no matter what field you are going into. Going to a school like Queen’s will likely open more doors for you, and you can get the most sought after jobs in these fields. Whether something is worth it is truly up to you, my intent here is to inform you that there is still an advantage to being in QC, even for these less competitive fields. I’ve seen people on Reddit say that QC is worthless if you aren’t going into finance or consulting and I wish i could express how not true this is!!! It’s up to YOU to decide if it’s worth it for your personal financial situation, but I can assure you that a Queen’s Commerce degree is anything but worthless. If you want more info on this and how I have been impacted by the QC brand while recruiting for marketing jobs, message me and i’d be happy to explain further.

Feel free to ask any questions and let me know if I missed anything.