From a young age, many of us have been exposed to North American media that has shaped our perception of its education systems.
Maybe you have an ingrained belief that multiple-choice SATs don’t match the rigour of A-levels, or grew up harbouring High School Musical hopes for your own school experience, only to be met with a reality check – something I’m guilty of.
Even if you’ve never imagined attending an Ivy League school like Rory Gilmore, and terms like ‘Greek Life’ and ‘pep rallies’ mean little to you, there’s no doubt that university across the pond is widely perceived as very different from the UK.
But, beyond what mainstream media has dramatised for our entertainment, how different really is it?
I can only speak from my own experience: a semester studying at a single university in Canada, distinct from the American system. While Canada differs in its admissions process, offers comparatively lower tuition fees, and has a less prominent fraternity culture than the US, I still noticed a plethora of things during my time at McGill University that felt ‘typically North American’, and markedly different from my experience at the University of Manchester.
School pride
Something I couldn’t ignore when settling into student life in Canada, aside from the knee-deep snow and sub-zero temperatures, was how much more involved the university seemed to be in student life, and vice versa. This isn’t to discredit the efforts of our Students’ Union in creating an enriching student experience; rather, it reflects broader cultural differences between North America and the UK.
Take university merchandise, for example. Personally, I could count on one hand the number of times I’ve spotted a student in Manchester wearing university-branded clothing. In Montreal, however, it was commonplace to see ‘McGill’ emblazoned across hoodies, bags, and water bottles while strolling through campus.
By visibly identifying with their university, I found that students at McGill, and presumably other institutions across Canada and the US, were more open to casual expressions of school pride than we are in the UK. While attending university isn’t necessarily a ‘bigger deal’ there, observations like this often made it feel as though it was.
Sport
With that being said, there’s no denying that university sport is a far bigger deal in North America than in the UK. Even at their most competitive, university teams here don’t compare to the scale of the multibillion-dollar industry that surrounds university sport across Canada and the US.
Many prospective students factor athletic reputation into their university choices, with some aiming to secure admission through sports scholarships. As a result, the infrastructure for scouting and developing sporting talent is far more prominent than it is in the UK.
During my time abroad, I didn’t have the opportunity to attend a university game or experience a pep rally first-hand. However, the images often associated with college sport – packed stadiums, mascots, cheerleaders, and bleachers – are a reality at many institutions. With streaming platforms like DAZN and ESPN now offering coverage of US college sports, it’s easier than ever to see this culture in action.
Academia
When addressing academics, the crux of university after all, I anticipated a very different learning experience. This became clear as soon as I reviewed my course options at McGill and saw how broken-down the assessment criteria were. While this may seem unremarkable, as a Humanities student accustomed to submitting two essays per course each semester, normally weighted at 40% and 60%, the shift was significant.
Instead, I found myself regularly submitting work worth 15%, 10%, or even as little as 3% of my final grade. Surprisingly, this proved beneficial. It gave me greater control over my own grade; by consistently putting effort into each seemingly ‘minor’ task, whether a two-page essay or a weekly 150-word analysis, I was able to build towards a result I felt proud of. It also reduced the temptation to leave a heavily weighted assignment until the last minute.
Attendance, too, was incentivised. Unlike the familiar loopholes of SEAtS, what better motivation to attend lectures than to have them contribute 10-15% of your grade? For the sake of student sanity, I’m not encouraging the University of Manchester to implement this, but I can begrudgingly admit its success rate.
Although it took some time to adjust to the GPA system, and to questions about my ‘major’ and ‘minor’, I quickly adapted to the “work hard, play hard” culture at McGill that felt more intense than my experience of university in the UK so far.
Drinking culture
Maybe it’s because I’m used to the UK’s entrenched pub culture and the easy accessibility of alcohol, but I found drinking to be a noticeably different experience in Canada. It was initially humbling to have to visit a liquor store, rather than simply popping into a corner shop (possibly a good thing), but I was also struck by the extent to which the university itself was involved in students’ social lives.
While Manchester has its own campus staples – 532 Bar, Uttley Bar, and the now-closed Squirrels – the relatively casual attendance of these venues contrasts sharply with the long queues I found myself joining most Thursdays during my semester abroad. Though shaped by my own positive experience, campus social life at McGill felt more structured, with a stronger sense of collective ‘school spirit’ that seemed distinctly North American, and somewhat unfamiliar from a UK perspective.
This difference was particularly evident during welcome events. In the UK, Freshers’ Week often feels relatively unstructured, centred on independently meeting people and making plans. At McGill, however, ‘Faculty Frosh’ offered a more organised introduction to university life: a series of events led by returning students that encouraged connection within your academic cohort. This emphasis on structure extended further, even to department-led traditions such as boat races – not to be mistaken with the formal Oxbridge equivalent.
Even St Patrick’s Day, which in Ireland and the UK is often spent more casually in pubs, felt like a larger occasion. Between sold-out campus events and the McGill ‘Ginger Run’, a tradition that is hilariously self-explanatory, there was a level of enthusiasm that pointed to a broader cultural difference in how student life is organised and celebrated across North America.
Overall thoughts
If I had to distil what made university life in Canada feel so different, it would come down to a strong and pervasive sense of ‘school spirit’. While I value the sense of student community in Manchester, particularly in areas like Fallowfield and Withington, students here are often left to navigate university life more independently than those at McGill.
From less frequent assessments and greater autonomy during Freshers’ Week, to a comparative lack of campus-based social events, the difference in institutional involvement was clear. Studying in North America ultimately highlighted how much more structured and collectively driven student life can be.
