My experiences
I am a German 18-year-old student. After I finished my school, like most of us, I didn’t really know what to do now. I wanted to improve on my language skills and experience new cultures. My parents weren’t really okay with work and travel, so at the end of a long debate I decided to study at the Canadian university Bishop’s University. I am going to start my second semester soon but study in Germany after.
Bishop’s is located in a very small place called Lennoxville next to a small city called Sherbrooke. So basically, the whole life has to take place on the campus. The campus is great don’t get me wrong. We have a great sports centre, nice green spots, a theatre, the classrooms are mostly well equipped; we even have a golf course. But with time the excitement decreases a little. Of course, you would go in the city next to you, but there isn’t much more than a coffee, a supermarket and McDonalds. My point is that because I lived in a rather big city (600,000 citizens) all my life and, because of the cold, the transition was hard.
Bishop’s is a great place though. You meet new people almost every day and most importantly everyone is nice. It doesn’t matter where you are. If it is on campus, in the supermarket or anywhere else. Everyone is just nice.
I would have to mention the classes. The academic level of the science courses. Of course, in my first semester I was obligated to take introduction courses, which really shouldn’t be hard. But with my school knowledge I was able to score easily over average scores with minimum or no preparation at all where others would fail.
My final conclusion is that my stay in Canada is a great experience. My level of spoken and written English and French got so much better, I made friends from many different origins and I think that just because of these new experiences my stay was worth it.