Seven Ontario universities have entered into a broad credit-transfer agreement that, for some students, could ease the transition between universities, according to a University of Toronto press release.
Students earning any first-year arts and science credits at one of the universities will be able to count them as general credits at another university.
Additionally, the schools have established course equivalencies for over 20 of their most popular courses.
McMaster University, Queen’s University, University of Guelph, University of Ottawa, University of Toronto, University of Waterloo, and Western University are all participating in the University Credit Transfer Consortium.
The program “will provide clarity and enhanced flexibility for students working towards a bachelor’s degree at any of the seven universities,” according to the release.
The consortium will enable students to complete their degrees faster, according to the release.
That’s something second-year Carleton University student Morgan Jackman said he would have appreciated.
Jackman spent two years at Wilfrid Laurier University and transferred to the University of Waterloo for a year before coming to Carleton.
While this new program would likely been of little use to Jackman, a commerce student, if it had been established a few years ago he said that having a similar program in place would make transferring much easier.
“Moving from Laurier to Carleton was a mess and a half,” Jackman said.
“Laurier runs their business program a lot differently than Carleton does. So after taking first-year business at Laurier, I’m now taking first-year business [classes] again at Carleton, because they don’t consider my classes to be equivalent.”
Jackman said his economics classes transferred directly over to Carleton. However, his first-year sociology and psychology classes from Waterloo did not, so Jackman said he’s stuck taking similar first-year courses he said he feels he already has the requirements for.
Jackman said having a better credit transfer program would have “been a leg up.”
“If I had the opportunity to take advantage of it at the time I absolutely would have,” he said.
“I would definitely have more second-year classes right now and [it would have] given me more time to focus on the classes I needed to make up rather than ones I kind of seem to just have to take.”
A secretary for Suzanne Blanchard, Carleton University’s associate vice-president (students and enrolment) said Blanchard wasn’t able to comment about whether Carleton would consider entering into an agreement like this one.
