The true impact of bird courses

C/O Tim Gouw, Unsplash

With bird courses changing, so should we

By: Diya Ahmad, Opinions Editor

Even before beginning my first year at McMaster in 2019, the term “bird course” was well-known to the 500-large graduating class of my high school. In particular, McMaster’s fall course selection coincided with our high school graduation. Being one of the unlucky ones with a second-day course selection appointment, all I could do was watch worriedly as my peers scrambled to get a spot in one of the coveted “bird” courses.

The phenomenon of scouring the depths of r/McMaster to find bird courses isn’t one isolated to first year. In fact, the dichotomy between those with first-day enrollments and those with second-day enrollments is majorly rooted in the popularity of bird courses. While getting into a popular course is treated as nothing less of an achievement, it’s important to step back and reflect on the true impact of bird courses. 

This isn’t to say that there aren’t students who are genuinely interested in the aforementioned courses, but that the most popular motivation for taking such courses is to receive an easy grade. However, this assumption has its own pitfalls. On one hand, perceptions of which courses are “easy” and which are not are often wrong.

For example, modifications to the delivery of ECON 1B03, a supposed “bird course,” following the termination of in-person classes, such as the introduction of weekly quizzes, left many students feeling as if it didn’t meet their expectations of a true “bird” course. On r/McMaster, students expressed disbelief in the course ever being a perceived bird course to begin with, emphasizing the difficulty of five-minute quizzes that gave one minute per question to be answered. 

Clearly, the uncertainty of class formats amid the pandemic and our return to in-person learning have left sentiments about bird courses to be lacking in reliability. The effects of this are more massive than initially meets the eye. 

From personal experience, bird courses are often decided upon and chosen through conversations with upper-year students. Even throughout the semester, such students can be turned to for guidance through shared experiences. Due to the changing nature of previously-considered “bird” courses, there’s ultimately a breakdown in communication between younger and older students. The confusion and uncertainty that comes with beginning university is often resolved by connecting with others that have been through the same experiences. 

Even something as simple as bird courses illustrates that the changes in the way we learn at McMaster has ultimately led to differences in experience and our ability to support one another.

Apart from our connection with our fellow Mac students, our over-reliance on bird courses has tremendous impacts on our learning. With Mac’s distinction as Canada’s most research-intensive university, it comes as no surprise that nearly all of the McMaster students that I’ve met have plans to pursue a postgraduate degree, whether that be graduate school or a professional program such as medicine or law. 

Let’s take the example of medical schools. With rising admission averages for GPA, it’s no wonder bird courses are as popular as they are. After all, if each and every one of your course grades are being evaluated under a magnifying glass, wouldn’t you want to take all steps possible to ensure they’re as high as possible?

Yet, in my experience, bird courses have the potential to cause more harm than good. Oftentimes, I’ve had to spend more time on the endless assignments of a supposedly “easy” course than the ones mandatory for my degree. Even when a class has been truly easy, it’s undeniably difficult to devote time to subjects that you have no passion for. Oftentimes, I’ve felt that taking bird courses for the purposes of taking an easy course has caused me to feel as if I’m wasting my time and money at university. 

Reflecting on my negative experiences with bird courses, I’ve changed my mindset entirely to accommodate electives that wouldn’t take away from my mandatory courses while aligning with my interests. Being in health sciences, a program that gives me numerous electives, I’ve found much more gratification in filling up my elective space with economics courses: a field of study that I have cared about since my time in high school. 

There’s no doubt that choosing bird courses has its benefits, especially amidst the pressure to do well in order to gain admission to professional schools. Yet, when acknowledging changing course structures, internal satisfaction and “bang for your buck,” perhaps it’s time to do away with the trend towards bird courses.