When the Musée du Louvre in Paris asked Umberto Eco, the well-known Italian intellectual, to create an exhibition for the museum, Eco decided that it would focus on one of his personal fascinations. The exhibition, which opened a week and a half ago, is devoted to the list.
Lists, Eco recently told the German magazine
Der Spiegel, interest him because they attempt to create order in a chaotic world. From menus to wills, he argues, lists and rankings are key components of our culture. "How, as a human being, does one face infinity?" Eco asked. "How does one attempt to grasp the incomprehensible? Through lists, through catalogues, through collections in museums, and through encyclopaedias and dictionaries."
For ambitious high school students across North America, few lists are more influential than college and university rankings. As a high school senior trying to make it into the best university I could, I diligently read the rankings published in the
U.S. News and World Report and other magazines. They made everything so simple: Columbia was better than Northwestern, which in turn was better than Ohio State. McGill was better than Dalhousie, though Dal still trampled Trent.
Universities also value such rankings, of course, and few do so more openly than McGill. Though our university enjoys a prestigious reputation in Canada, our administration has made little secret of the fact that it would like McGill to be compared to Harvard and Yale rather than the University of British Columbia. For this reason, the rankings the university administration takes most seriously are the international ones compiled by Britain's
Times Higher Education-QS.
However, once you enter university you may notice that these rankings seem far more arbitrary than they did in high school. But it's difficult to realize just how useless such rankings are until you study at another university.
Two months ago, I began a semester abroad at University College London, which the
Times Higher Education-QS recently ranked the fourth-best university in the world. Because McGill placed 18th in the same rankings this year, I figured that I would notice some sort of difference in quality between the two universities. But I haven't. As far as I can tell, UCL's academics are no stronger than McGill's. If anything, I've received a better education back in Montreal.
What actually makes one university better than another, though? If better means superior teaching by brighter faculty members - the aspect of university that would affect undergraduates the most - then ranking universities is nearly impossible. Every major university in the world possesses some brilliant and compelling lecturers along with some pedantic and moronic professors. You've just got to choose your classes carefully and hope for the best.
This isn't to say that all universities are the same. Some schools are undoubtedly far better places to get an education than others. But this has more to do with a university's academic culture than anything else.
I've enjoyed my time at McGill because I've been surrounded by curious, intelligent people eager to discuss everything from theoretical physics to the exile of King Zog. I've become a better writer by taking some good classes, but also by spending far too many hours working for this newspaper.
Maclean's doesn't factor these aspects of university into its rankings.
McGill's unique academic culture is what makes it a great place to spend four years, not the size of its classes or the amount of neuroscience grant money it receives. While Umberto Eco is right to note that that lists like wills and menus shape human culture, university rankings are one type of list that don't deserve to be celebrated.
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