Discuss in groups

We’ve all had that seminar. The teaching assistant asks a question and everyone looks down at the floor—you included. It’s not easy to get a room full of 19-year-olds to discuss a topic on demand. But if there’s anything the Maclean’s On Campus website has proven, it’s that students are thrilled by debate—when it directly affects them. Every time there are whispers of a faculty strike, or every time a far-off student union tries to ban this, or spend your money on that, On Campus’s comments section is flooded.

But who has time to read all that?

Now, instead of forcing you to scroll down each conversation to hear other students, you’ll be able to click through video responses from real students. There will still be written comments, of course. But next time Ann Coulter is prevented from speaking due to riled-up students, we’ll ask our new 20-person Maclean’s Student Panel for their insights. They will provide video responses filmed right in their dorm rooms and we’ll pick the best to display on our website, but all videos will be viewable from our You Tube Channel.

The Student Panel includes voices from Newfoundland to British Columbia and every province in between. The members are highachieving high school students, self-declared homework haters, student union presidents, artists, philosophers, and one’s a single mom. They represent the diversity of Canada’s 900,000 full-time university students, and those aspiring to be, and the challenges they face. Chances are, some will be just like you.

Most weeks, we’ll ask about a controversial issue—like the recent suspension of a University of Manitoba professor who says his school is turning into “a degree mill.” Other weeks,
we’ll ask students for tips on everything from where to find the best campus chow to dealing with a noisy roommate.

This week’s question was: “What was the biggest surprise about university and why?” While all responses have been posted through our You Tube channel, the submission we are featuring on the web site comes from Pascale Gordon, a fourth-year media student at the University of Western Ontario. It is viewable right on our front page.

To learn all about our student panelists, read onto the next page.