Overall, the program and social work faculty are absolutely amazing. They genuinely care about the profession as well as their students well-being. There is a good balance between the courses and the courseload is not overly heavy for a full-time student students. The online and hybrid options for courses is very beneficial for people who have completed a college diploma and social service worker. And are looking to further their education.

However, that being said, all of the positives of the program are unfortunately outweigh by how much of a disaster the institution is itself. There has been no consistency over this six semesters. I was enrolled in a program. The registrar’s office is impossible to get through to. There is a lot of miscommunication around the transfer credits. The faculty turnover rate is incredibly high and as a result negatively impact students. The institution charges a low rate for tuition, but it’s reflective on the quality of services that they provide in return. Every time courses were to be selected the systems were going down. The tuition fees were never reflected adequately. Not to mention that no one responds to emails. I nearly had to prolong my education by an extra two semesters even though I had the full 120 credits because they misread my transcript. The graduation process is not clearly outlined to students and creates a tremendous amount of stress, they are not flexible whatsoever in regards to issuance of official transcripts when it comes to registering with the college of social workers and almost invalidates the entire four years of social work education you put in at this institution because the one document you need to be a registered professional they will give you a hard time issuing and it can take up to 10 weeks if you are not hounding the registrar’s office.

Overall, I would recommend the program if you are looking to complete your bachelors of social work. But before warned of the amount of unnecessary stress.

[Chemical and Bioengineering Program vs Biotechnology?]

**Caveats before reading:**

I completed the Chemical and bioengineering program a while back and may be biased in its favor, but I will try to give the best advice I can.

**Main upsides to the Chemical and bioengineering program:**

Great profs (a bad prof can really make or break your learning experience)

Strong research opportunities (one of the top streams in engineering for hiring summer students)

Many chem eng profs do research relating to bio/medical products with a heavy emphasis on industry partnerships

You still take all the default chemical engineering courses, giving you the credentials to work in a very wide range of fields

Grad school is not required to find work unless you want to be involved in R&D

Flexibility in some technical electives to be able to take courses that interest you and prepare you for the type of work you might be interested in.

Co-op is not guaranteed but easy to obtain. After 1st year is difficult to get a co-op because you have no specialization and education yet, but each passing year makes it much easier.

Can become a licensed engineer if you're interested.

A relatively common pathway both for grad school in medical/pharma work or for medical school.

**Main downsides to the Chemical and bioengineering program:**

5 year program. If you end up not being interested in work that's bio-related then you may feel like this is a wasted year extra.

Engineering degrees prepare you for a broad range of careers, so the first \~2 years are pretty foundational/theoretical which can be less interesting to some. Later years make up for this by focusing on the application of the fundamental skills you've learned, so many students prefer the later courses which feel more like "real engineering"

Some of the foundational bio courses feel too broad for some students. They take some basic microbiology and anatomy courses which may feel unimportant or too far removed from engineering for some students' taste. They form a useful foundation for working with anything pharma/medical related, though.

**Main upsides to the Biotechnology program:**

It seems to be a very practical program with a large number of practical lab hours.

It appears to prepare you very well in a variety of lab techniques.

Guaranteed (mandatory) co-op. (You still have to interview for places, of course, but they seem to have industry partnerships to help you find placements)

**Main downsides to the Biotechnology program:**

Highly regimented schedule, so you take each course at a specific time and have no electives. This can apparently cause some friction if you fail a course because they don't typically run another section of the course until the following year.

Cannot become a licensed engineer anymore, to the best of my knowledge.

Prepares you very well for a narrow range of jobs but also therefore limits the industries you can apply to. This may not be an issue if you're passionate about the specific jobs the program prepares you for.

Most people taking Btech programs seem to gravitate towards project-based masters degrees rather than research-based ones. I am not sure what the prospects are like for progressing from this program into a PhD if long-term research is your main career goal.

**TLDR:**

I know that the chemical and bioengineering program offers a strong pathway towards medical/biological research if that's something that interests you, and I personally had a very positive experience with it. Its main weakness is the length of the degree, if you aren't sure you want to pursue biological-related work.

My understanding of the Biotechnology program is that it teaches you amazing practical skills to work as a technician but may make the transition to grad school slightly bumpier or may prepare you for a narrower range of careers, which might not be a problem if you're confident that you want to pursue those careers.

By GentrifiedBacterium [https://www.reddit.com/r/McMaster/comments/1gol6c1/eng_b_tech/]

Tron II here. I have a bunch of stuff that I wrote at one point, here's a summary.
**TL;DR:** Tron is very good in theory, but fails hard in practice. For coops, you have to work on your own. 2nd year isn't great, but might get better later on.

**Coop:**
All other streams are more specialized in specific jobs that you apply for. Why would someone hire a Tron student over a software student for a coding job? You have to work outside courses and build your skills, portfolio and learn on your own. Harder to get a job, but you can get into a broader range of jobs (provided you have the skills, which you have to work for)

**Organisation, structure:** *(2nd year opinion, please get an upper year's opinion too)*
Horrible. They keep changing the program often, and it usually doesn't feel right. 2 courses this year teach the same thing for over 4-6 weeks. Only takeaway from the whole 2nd year was learning C, and an EngPhy course involving circuits.

There's no synergy between different courses, which is pretty sad and irritating. It's like giving you a penny and an eraser. What are you gonna do with both of them? How will you use them effectively? Tron has a good concept behind it. A combination of mechanical, electrical, software. In practice, it fails hard. There is no proper link between the courses. You won't hear this from Eng Advisors or Recruitment teams, cause their job's to keep students in Mac *(issa biness, gimme da moneh)*.

**Example:** 1P13 was praised as the pinnacle of engineering courses last year, during it's conception. It was supposed to combine 1C03 (CAD), 1D04 (Python), 1MM3 (Materials), 1P03 (Engineering Professionalism). How well did that go?

However, situation might be better in the upper years, so I'm hoping someone can give their opinion about it.

**Mech courses:**
Lmao they pointless. I'd rather pick up a textbook and learn about them if I ever need to use them. But you gotta learn that, along with power lines/transmissions.

By RhindorOP [https://www.reddit.com/r/McMaster/comments/mf4p4j/tron_vs_elec_for_my_purposes/]