My Exchange at McGill University
Being able to have the opportunity to head overseas for a semester was an incredible opportunity that I am extremely grateful I was able to do. It was my first time doing a big overseas adventure and living independently. I first found out about the 360 International Exchange programme when my older cousin did an exchange at UBC in Vancouver. This opened my eyes to the opportunity and encouraged me to start saving up to try doing an exchange myself in the future.
Before starting my exchange, I decided to make the most of the end of the Canadian summer by arriving a few weeks earlier and travelling around Canada on my way to Montreal. I was able to go to Whistler, Vancouver, Banff and Toronto (where I met my Uncle) on the way which was an awesome experience in itself. I’m really glad I was able to do this, though I wasn’t able to spend much time in each place. It was enough to experience the main attractions, and I don’t think I would have had the time to see a lot of those places during the exchange.
First, arriving in Canada was a very surreal moment after all of the planning from the last half year or so had finally become a reality. I then felt this even more so when I arrived in Montreal. The place I’d done so much research on and seen so many travel videos and pictures of before coming was finally right in front of my eyes.
I stayed at 3653 Rue University, which was sort of a mix between dorm and apartment-style living. With 4 floors and around 8 people per floor (each with their own single room of various sizes). Each floor has its own living area, kitchen and two bathrooms. Everyone living there was an exchange student, which made things really fun as everyone always wanted to go out and explore. The place was pretty hard to find much information about online as the McGill website didn’t have any pictures or much info at all about it, so I had to ask the exchange coordinators there about it and they were very useful. I think out of the other options that were availible it was the best place, as it was on campus (a lot of my classes were on the other side of the road), and had the best living setup. Although the entire kitchen was empty when we arrived, we had to buy things. There is also a cleaner who comes twice a week.
Orientation was pretty well done at McGill. There are a lot of frosh events for various faculties and clubs. These are around 3 days of various activities, although are mainly for first years so I decided not to do one. But I kind of regret not doing one of the outdoor club Frosh’s as mostly exchange students did that and they sounded like a lot of fun. There are then a few events for meeting other internationals, club expos and similar event to what UOA has.
With engineering, there is a worldwide standard, so overall, the content I was learning felt pretty familiar, and most of the teaching styles were somewhat similar to UOA. But I would say that overall, the teaching felt a bit more ‘old school’ as half of my lecturers were teaching straight off the blackboard, and the classes felt more similar to high school with slightly smaller classes and a lot more class interaction from the students. I generally enjoyed this, but didn’t like the fact that none of my classes were recorded (some are at McGill, but not many).
Overall, I loved Montreal. Out of all the cities I visited while over there, Montreal remained my favourite city, closely followed by Boston. Maybe this was a biased from living there, but I think the feel of the city was great. I really enjoyed the challenge of trying to interact with the nearly non-existent French I have, although you can easily get by with just English. The public transport is really good, the city felt safe and there was always something going on.
I would say the cost of living was pretty similar, maybe a bit more expensive than Auckland. The price of most things were relatively similar to back home, but were of course in Canadian Dollars, making things a bit more expensive.
I tried to take part in a few club while there. I joined the Waterpolo team, which trained twice a week, McGill Outdoors Club and McGill Climbing Club. These were great ways to meet new people from McGill and see the country. The water polo team plays in the Ontario league, so I had the opportunity to travel to Toronto for a tournament. With the outdoors and climbing clubs I was able to get on a couple trips. I was very close to joining their Formula Student and/or Rocket team but decided I didn’t have enough time for those.
Life on Campus was very vibrant, there are always things happening. At the start of the year there is a Open air pub running for a couple weeks and each faculty has its own pub night in their basement once a week. There are always sports games to go to such as football, American Football and ice hockey. The gym is also only $50 for the semester and is really high quality.
As an exchange student you have to buy the meal saver plan which is a prepaid amount to use at the on campus cafes and dining halls (we found new res to be the best hall). The dining hall food was really high quality in my opinion and is all you can eat. I would typically go for dinner and sort my self out for breakfast and lunch. That made my plan last perfectly to the end of the semester.
Some of the highlights were going on some sort of trip nearly every weekend. One especially good trip was during the reading break travelling up through Quebec, then out east to Nova Scotia. We also managed to get a ski trip done.
One of the main challenges was budgeting, I think travelling ended up costing a bit more than expected so I came back with a bit less than I had planned to. But it was definitely all worth it.
As some advice, I would say definitely make the most of your time and do as much as you can. If you want to do bigger trips I would suggest doing something before the semester during summer as you don’t get a lot of time during the reading break.
Q&A
What were some of the highlights of the academic experience at your host university?
I really enjoyed living on campus; it meant you could be more involved with university life and made getting to class super easy (vs my 1-hour commute back home). I overall think that the teaching quality was sometimes challenging but good quality for most classes. Something I found a bit annoying is that my teachers wouldn’t provide us with many, if any past papers or exams to study from unlike Auckland. The classes and buildings themselves were also really nice to be in and have quite a bit of history.
Would you recommend any particular activity/activities unique to your host country or university?
I would highly recommend the outdoors club, even if you’re not super into outdoorsy things. Similarly to AUTC, they run lots of great trips. They have a weekly meeting where they have fun activities going. In Montreal, all of the touristy things are great to do, but something I especially enjoyed was getting a bixi and biking around the city. On a nice day its such a great was to explore the beautiful city.
What are your top 3 tips for future students attending your host university or going on exchange to your host country?
McGill has a discount code to use at enterprise car rentals, this made hiring a car a very cost effective way to go on trips (and won’t give you the harsh young driver fees), especially if you have a full car. I would highly recommend getting a group together to go places within driving distance (eg, Toronto, Quebec City, Boston, etc) so that you then have the freedom to do things in your own time.
I think arriving in the country to travel a bit earlier gives you a great chance to get some familiarity with the country and gives you the time to explore places more. It also means you get to experience 3 seasons while away for the fall semester.
Try to get involved with a good mix of uni clubs, and things with exchange students. It is great to be hanging out with other exchange students, but I think it’s also important to do your own thing to meet more locals too. Another good way to do this is to try pick a course that will likely have a group project, its a good way to make friends at uni.
How much did you budget for your exchange? Was this enough? Were there any lessons learned that would help future students budget for their own exchange?
I budgeted roughly $13000 for the semester. I think this would have been perfect if I only went for the uni semester, but as I did a bit of travel before and after the semester I ended up spending around $15000 which I think was worth it in the end. I definitely think that travelling ended up costing a bit more than expected for things like weekend trips away. For example, a weekend trip to Toronto cost around $400. I think I would try to limit going out for dinner where you can as the dining hall was always a really good option.
What are your most significant takeaways from your experience abroad?
One of the biggest takeaways was definitely that you should say yes to doing things more. It will lead you experiencing more, meeting new people and having more fun. Definitely try to be as efficient as you can with your uni work to give yourself more time to have fun while away, and at the end of the day, it won’t be the end of the world if you skip a tutorial on a Friday arvo every now and then to go experience something new.
Do you want to share anything about travels you did outside your host city/country?
Being in Montreal, you’re very close to the US. So if you head down there at some point (which you should!) going across the border by car is really easy, just make sure you get your ESTA and I would recommend printing out your proof of enrolment at McGill as they sometimes will ask for it and it makes the process a lot quicker.
Tags: 2023, Engineering, Report