Wilfrid Laurier University    

       

Exchange Report - Fall 2016

Wong Hoi Ting

BBA (OM & FINA)

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Part 1 - Monthly Activity Log September 2016 I took direct flight from Hong Kong to Toronto Pearson Airport in 31st August morning. When I arrived Toronto, it was still 31st August (14 hours flight). I stayed in my friend’s house in the first night so I don’t know how to get to Waterloo from Pearson Airport by public transport (my friend picked me up from the airport to her home and then from her home to Laurier). My first impression towards Canada is spacious. There are so many maple trees. You have to walk a lot in Canada. I experienced some cultural shock in the first week as this was the first time for me to stay in a whole English environment and foreign people love talking so much. Don’t afraid and try you best to stay with them. I visited Niagara Falls on 10th September. The trip was included in the orientation week so don’t forget to join! The weather was great that day. Niagara Falls is really beautiful and amazing. You will become wet if you take the cruse to get closer to the fall but it is worth to do so. There was one more big event in September- homecoming game! It is American football game and almost every Laurier student would go and watch the game. Laurier team won therefore the atmosphere was great.

October 2016 Class in Laurier is very similar to HKUST. One little different is that there are classes from 7pm to 10pm. I live near campus so it is not bad for me to attend 3 night classes. And because of that I got 2 days off per week. If you would like to buy some Laurier clothes or some other souvenirs, you should pay attention to the area outside the bookstore, there will be some pop up booths.

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First big sale day is thank giving day on 10th October. If you miss it, there will be one another big sale day in November. Let’s go shopping on those days! Reading week starts on the thank giving day. Me and my roommates no need to go to school on Fridays so our reading week trip was started on 8th October. We went to Montreal, Quebec City and Ottawa. It was my first trip to have foreign travel partners. Communication is really important as we all have different daily habits and views towards travelling. They love to walk a lot (can be 10 hours per day) and they have no sense of taking public transport (since public transport is not popular around where they live). Generally I was happy to travel with them as I travelled in their way which was quite new to me. Montreal is a beautiful city with nice mountain view while Quebec City is a old city. Ottawa is more modern when comparing with Montreal and Quebec City. When I went to Quebec City, I met the crew of Globin! It was great but I couldn’t meet the main actors.

November 2016 One interesting thing happened in November- Winter Time. Congratulations, you have one more hour to sleep on the first Sunday in November! The time difference between Hong Kong and Waterloo will change from 12 hours to 13 hours (slower than Hong Kong). Black Friday is also in November, it is another big sale day in Canada. Black Friday, which is on 24th November, indicates the start of Christmas product selling period. My friends took this chance to buy some winter clothing. I spent some time in different places like Guelph, Toronto, Cambridge, Mississauga, and Hamilton. You can take bus (within two hours) from Waterloo to these places. I can’t tell in details of these places here but you should go there to see their own unique characteristics.

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December 2016 I did not do much travelling before my final exams. The weather became colder and colder. I need to wear more before going out from my residence. The official final exams period is almost two weeks. If you are lucky, you can finish your exams earlier. My exams ended at 20th December and I had to move out on the next day. You can apply for the extension but I believe you cannot stay too long as Laurier’s next semester starts in early January. I went to New York and Washington before Christmas with my French friend. We took an overnight bus to New York and a 15 hour bus from Washington to Toronto. Overall I love Washington more. The subway in Washington is cheaper and more advance, also it is more safe staying there (as White House is located there). Don’t forget to pay a visit to the museums as they are huge and interesting!

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January 2017 Before I came back to Hong Kong in early January. I stayed in Toronto for five nights. I went to Union Station and took Go Bus to different places to travel. For Toronto public transport, remember to get the Proof-of-Payment (POP) in the subway station even you are using the PRESTO Card. I experienced that some street cars in Toronto do not support the PRESTO Card so it cannot act as the proof when you do the transfer. I also went to Air Canada Centre to watch a live NBA! The atmosphere was fantastic! I enjoyed the game so much even I am not a very big fan of NBA.

     

Part 2 - General Exchange Information 1)   Visa Procedures For Hong Kong passport holder, you don’t need to apply visa to Canada but need a eTA (please refer to the first link in part 4 to check whether you need a visa or eTA to Canada). Also you don’t need a study permit as you study there for less than 6 months. If you would like to travel to USA during or after the exchange, then you need to apply USA visa in advance. 2)  Orientation Activities The orientation lasted 9-days. It included some seminars, free meals, academic sessions and outgoing sessions. Some seminars and free meals were Canadian culture related which were great to a newcomer. However, there was no chance for you to meet local students, i.e. Canadian. You can only meet exchange students and international students (post-graduate, graduate and undergraduate students from all over the world) in orientation activities.

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3) International Services & Activities There is an office located in the campus called Laurier international. It is responsible for your exchange life, from your pre arrival to your stay there. It holds several activities such as visit to Niagara falls or aquarium in Toronto, holiday dinner, welcome dinner and exchange fair. 4) Accommodations I chose to live on campus as I would like to meet some friends who go to Laurier also. I lived in a big unit with 5 bedrooms. I shared kitchen, two toilets, living room and laundry with four girls. They were all exchange students. My unit was located at a basement of an apartment (all the students living there are exchange students, therefore I can meet around 20 foreign friends!). The apartment is super near to Laurier, 5 minutes walk only. Although you can save around 1000CAD (around 6000HKD) if choosing live off-campus, but you need to find house yourself and you may not live with other exchange students. You can also save some money by no need paying a meal plan of 1000CAD if you live off-campus. In my opinion, the meal plan can let you try the coffee shops and canteens in Laurier and at the same time cook by yourself (canteens in Laurier are more expensive than UST so the money in meal plan is not enough for you to pay two meals everyday). It is quite boring and time consuming to cook every meal. And it is quite difficult to cook meal for one person (as I don’t eat much in meals). 5) Courses Registration In early May, I received an email which told me that the class schedule was released and I could apply for courses. Different from UST, you have to type course code, the time and what days of week for the courses. In July, the exchange assistant will contact you and tell which courses you can get in. However, it seems a manual process so I can’t get into all courses that I want despite the fact that there still have vacancies. Remember to contact them frequently, as soon as possible and tell them which courses really want and negotiate (you can so-call use their power to get in the courses which require pre-requisite that you haven’t studied)! In mid July, you will receive your timetable. You can add, drop courses or change to other lecture after semester starts. But be careful some staff won’t sign to allow you to change the time (they

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think that it is not necessary for you to change to afternoon class if you already get into morning class), you may need to try to find another nicer staff later. 6) Teaching & Assessment Methods Almost the same as HKUST. Midterm, assignments, group project and final are elements of a course. Professors are friendly and reachable (may because there are no TAs). Courses in Laurier is in absolute grading!!! If you can get 50 marks then you can pass the course. BU 393 Financial Management II (Taught by William J. McNally) The course content is much more easier than FINA 4104 (I attended all lessons but I am not officially in it, now the course code changed to FINA 3303 so the content may has changed). Online based learning, instructor teaches you how to do the online exercises during class. No group project. Midterm is not difficult but finals is more difficult compared with midterm. All MCs and most questions are scenario based which require calculation. BU 423 Options, Futures & Swaps (Taught by Dalibor Stancovici) He is a really good professor! He can explain the concepts clearly and interestingly. I love his class so much. I will definitely recommend this course to students who want to know more about options, futures and swaps. If you do not have good numerical sense, you may find it difficult to get high marks in exams as he loves to hide some important information in questions. Math technic required in this course is easy. There is a case study which requires group work (only 3 people to write a total of 1,000 words and it is just 10% of the total grade). Two tests and Final are all LQ. BU 429 Capital Market Issues (Taught by Salvatore A. D’Agostino) Personally I don’t recommend this course. The content is all about insurance industry. The professor has a strong ascent and he speaks super fast. Every lesson covers many slides which are full of words. There is group project and you have to present your work at the end of the semester. You need to write a paper also. No analysis in exams at all but memorization. If you are good at memorization then go for it. Unfortunately memorization is not my cup of tea.

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BU 435 Supply Chain Management (Taught by Alireza Azimian) I am neutral towards this course. To be honest you cannot learn much new knowledge in this course as it is a combination of ISOM 3710, 3730 and 3760. Professor’s tone is quite flat so his classes are boring. There are 5 group assignments (55% of the course grade) which require the use of Solver. Professor just taught us how to use Solver in ten minutes (we learnt this for a whole course in UST!) and then asked us to hand in the assignments. Therefore I had to spend time to teach my group mates how to use Solver. What is good for the course is you can get high marks in assignments if you pay efforts. Midterm and final are all MCs and they are easy. 7) Sports & Recreation Facilities Laurier gym room is very good! I recommend to join the group exercise classes with a term pass. 86 CAD (around 500HKD) for a term pass that you can go whatever classes you want. The pass will become more expensive after mid September. Various type of exercises are available, for example, yoga, cycle fit and physical training. The coaches are nice. Class duration ranges from 20 to 50 minutes. The 20 minute classes are really intense so if you do not do exercise regularly, don’t go to those classes! If you can attend 30 classes, you can get a free t-shirt. I also recommend to spend some time with Laurier students’ orchestra. There will be orchestra concert once in a few weeks. The performers who are students of the music faculty are fantastic (I heard that Laurier is also famous for studying music)! As long as you got the Laurier student id, you don’t need to pay for the concert. If you are really fond of classical music, you can also go to the seminars (student performing session or musician sharing session) on Tuesdays and Thursdays. 8) Finance & Banking (including currency / expenses) There is no bank branch inside Laurier campus. RBC Royal Bank and BMO Bank of Montreal are located near campus. I opened my Canadian bank account before I went to Canada and I needed to call BMO Hong Kong for the details. You can do wireless transfer to transfer money from any Hong Kong bank account to your Canadian bank account. I got BMO deposit card and credit card. Unlike Hong Kong, deposit card here can pay and bank service need to book in advance (if you would like to meet and talk to the staff). You need a credit card as you can only use credit card to pay bus ticket

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for travel and my Hong Kong credit card does not work there. Although you can withdrawn money using any ATM on street, you have to pay some service charge if the ATM is not your own bank. If you eat in a restaurant, you need to pay a total 13% of the meal price for tax and another 15% (minimum amount) for tips. For Chinese restaurant you don’t need to pay tips. For general shopping, most of the products you have to pay the 13% tax, raw food and few daily necessity are the few exception.

Expenses HKD (Rate: 1CAD = 6HKD)

Flight Ticket (Round Trip) 16,000 Accommodation 21,000 Meal Plan + Levy 6,060 Bus Pass 515 Dental + Health Plan 1,335 Housing Activity Fee 70 University Health Insurance 1,225 Wireless Transfer Service Fee 120 Food/ Drinks 1,940

Entertainment 1,670 Clothing 720 Education 435 Travel 17,640 Miscellaneous 2,415

Total: ~71,000 9) Social Clubs & Networking Opportunities There is only one day of clubs promotion, unlike UST that having three weeks, that’s why I missed it. Luckily there is one small community in where I live so I can meet some exchange friends. They love going to bar and chat for a long time. This may not sounds interesting to most of Hong Kong students as we do not have this habit. 10) Health & Safety You will receive a health card in orientation week. The card will be useful if you get sick. I didn’t get sick during my exchange so I don’t know exactly how it works. You can have dental check once in one semester, remember to

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make good use of it as you already paid for it. You can find the booth for registration near Starbucks on campus (not everyday but you can always see it during the semester). 11) Food No Chinese canteen in campus, the most similar one is sushi and one selling rice or spaghetti with entrée but these two are quite expensive. If you have meal plan from on campus housing, you can spend the money in all canteen on campus and you no need to pay tax if you make use of the meal plan money. I recommend to use the money on coffee shops and dinning hall on campus. You can enjoy buffet in dinning hall with less then HKD100 per meal. 12) Transportation With your Laurier student ID, you can enjoy free bus for route 7,8,12,29,92,200,201. These routes can take you to many places near university. For travelling to other places like Toronto, you need to buy bus ticket online (Greyhound or Megabus) using credit card. These two bus company you have to book earlier to enjoy lower price. There is another bus company called Go Bus, you can buy the tickets when you get on the bus but generally the bus fare is more expensive than the other two. If you can plan the trip in advance, it is better to buy Greyhound or Megabus tickets; if you go on a sudden trip, Go Bus will be cheaper. Also for Go Bus and some local transit, you can get a PRESTO Card, which is similar to our Octopus Card, to enjoy lower bus fare and transfer discounts. You can buy the PRESTO Card in International News (convenient store) on campus with CAD 6 and then put some money in it, but you have to go somewhere else to make the card with student status. Believe me with PRESTO Card you can save a lot (in student status)! 13) Climate It was around 20 degree when I arrived. It turned cooler and first snow was in the end of October. It will be warmer in Toronto then Waterloo. When I left Mississauga and went to Pearson Airport, it was -11 degrees. Temperature from September to December 2016 was not a good reference as Canadians told me that Fall 2016 was the warmest Fall in recent years.

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14) Communication All in English. Although you can see French words everywhere, not all Canadian know French. In banks you can communicate using Mandarin. Some Chinese supermarket you can hear Mandarin or even Cantonese. 15) Cautionary measures You should bring snow shoes for your exchange. When Waterloo starts snowing, the snow can be so thick that not easy to walk on it with sport shoes. Also snow shoes can keep your feet warm.      

Part 3 - Items to Bring  Most of them you can find in thrift shops (second hand shop) in Canada. Items in thrift shops are cheap and in good condition. If you don’t mind using second hand stuff and would like to bring less luggage to Canada. Thrift shops are good place for you. For me I just bought hairdryer and a small rice cooker (less than HKD50 each) as I brought almost all things I need to Canada. HKID and passport Acceptance letter (print it out) Credit card Cash Winter clothing (scarf, thick jackets, clothes, underwear, hat and gloves) Some summer/autumn clothing (quite warm/cool in September) Two pin electrical adaptors Hairdryer Medicine Snow shoes (need waterproof) Stationary Coral fleece quilt Umbrella Lotion (when winter comes your hands will be super dry) Backpack for school/ travel Warm bottle Microwavable food box

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Pack tissues Hangers (bring some and buy more in thrift shops) Smartphones Laptop computers Calculator & financial calculator (believe me you are used to your own calculator so bring it with you)  

Part 4 - Useful Links and Contacts

Do you need a visa to Canada?-  http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/visit/visas.asp  Greyhound- https://www.greyhound.ca/ Megabus- http://ca.megabus.com//default.aspx Go Transit- http://www.gotransit.com/publicroot/en/default.aspx Trip Advisor-     https://www.tripadvisor.ca/ PRESTO Card-  https://www.prestocard.ca/en