Canada: My home away from home

Before signing up for my study at Tilburg University, I already knew I wanted to spend a half year abroad. When the possibility came up, I didn’t even doubt a second to go for an exchange study. The only question that remained was which country I wanted to visit. I could choose out of several destinations but continuing my study in Canada attracted me the most.  It is a big country with beautiful nature, good universities and amazing traveling opportunities.

At the moment I live in Hamilton. This city is located in Ontario, which is in the eastern part of Canada. It is the 6^th largest city of Canada with almost 600.000 inhabitants. It is located right next to ‘Lake Ontario’, an area half as big in square kilometers as the Netherlands.
I’m studying at McMaster University at the faculty ‘deGroote School of Business’. McMaster is one of the best universities of Canada and this was one of the reasons why I choose for this university. The university has a big old campus, which contributes to the nice atmosphere. They also have a student organization which organizes activities for exchange students like diners, galas, trips, parties etc.

At the 26th of August the moment has come to go to Canada.  I traveled by plane together with 3 fellow students of Tilburg University from Amsterdam to Toronto. Our first challenge? Finding a house to live in. I found a room in a student house where I live with 6 other Canadian students. The first week of September started with an introduction week.  This week consisted of diners, parties, getting to know the area but most of all meeting fellow exchange students from all over the world! We also made a trip to the Webster falls in Hamilton. A lot of people don’t know that Hamilton has many waterfalls (more than a hundred in total!). After this amazing first week, I started to attend lectures at the 8^th of September.

I attend lectures 3 days a week at McMaster. Every Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday I go to the university, which means I have 4 days off in the week. I attend 5 different courses: Entrepreneurship, Intermediate Financial Accounting, International Business, Mergers & Acquisitions and New Product Marketing. These courses are taught in a different way than at Tilburg University. At McMaster, they teach in small groups with a maximum of 35 people. Participating in class is highly valued and most of the time it is a percentage of your end mark.  I think the differences in teaching are very interesting, the lectures are fascinating, and it makes al lot of fun to participate in the class during the lectures.

Because of the long weekends, there is still enough time to do fun stuff besides studying.  The exchange club already organized a lot of different trips, for example a city trip to Toronto, the Niagara Falls and Algonquin Park. Algonquin Park is a national park where you can do canoeing, hiking and camping. At the end of September, we went 3 days to this national park where I got introduced with the ultimate camping experience:  making my own food in the woods, swimming in the lake, and sleeping with a sleeping bag outside. Surprisingly, the weather at the end of September was still more than 20 degrees.  In general, the weather in Canada is better than I expected. In September and October the weather was beyond my expectation warm and sunny with temperatures ranging from 15 till 30 degrees. Because of the weather the trips I made became even better.

After those couple trips of the exchange club, I decided to make my own travel plans. In September we had a week off. In this week I made a road trip with four friends around East Canada. We visited Montreal, Quebec and the capital Ottawa. Even after this big trip I’m still not done with traveling. In a view weeks I’m going to Detroit and Chicago and I will finish my exchange by making a trip to New York, where we will enjoy the beautiful city with New Year’s Eve.

I’m just halfway through my exchange, and already this place feels like being at home. I met some amazing people, saw the beautiful Canadian nature and stunning cities, and learned a lot about being abroad but most of all I made some unforgettable memories. Canada has surprised me positively. It is such a multicultural country. This is why I met a lot of people with Dutch roots. The people are the friendliest people I’ve ever met and their care for the nature is amazing. All those things contributed to my experience here in Canada, and they made it the best I could ever imagine.  But still there are two months left before I ‘m going back to the Netherlands. I’m very curious what else Canada has to offer me and I hope these two months will be just as fantastic as the first months.