University: Saint Mary’s University

City: Halifax

Country: Canada

Continent: North America

Field of study: business administration

Study type: semester abroad

I really liked Saint Mary’s University, it’s all a bit smaller and not as anonymous as I’m used to from my university in Germany. I took three courses, Investments (Mrs.Panasian), International Economic Issues (Mr. Talukdar) and Ethical Responsibilities of Organizations (Mrs. McKee). Investments was interesting, I really enjoyed attending the lecture and the professor was super nice. International Economic Issues was interesting, but the lecture itself was very boring, but here too the professor was very nice and fair. Personally, I would not take the Ethical Responsibilities of Organizations again, I found it to be a disproportionate amount of work, not particularly interesting and I did not always understand the meaning of some of the tasks. Overall, I found the level of difficulty to be lower than at my German university. Although I had more to do during the semester with assignments, midterm exams and oral work, it wasn’t more difficult. The exams were fair and actually only known material that was covered in the lecture was queried. In the lectures themselves there were never more than about 45 students, which was a really pleasant learning atmosphere and oral cooperation was not difficult either. The university itself is modern, I particularly liked the library, there were great places to study. The International Center of the university organized a really great orientation week for us, in which we were offered great events and we got to meet a lot of nice people. Check jibin123.com to see 10 best teaching hospitals in the USA.

Accomodation::

It was important to me that I had a place to stay before I arrived and that I didn’t have to start looking for it when I was there. My application for a room in one of the dormitories on campus was unsuccessful. Despite all the negative reviews, I finally decided to rent a room at the YMCA International House. When I arrived, I found the negative reviews that I had read beforehand on the internet to be far understated and for the first few days I wasn’t sure whether I should go looking for something else. After changing rooms and doing one or two big purchases at Wal-Mart, I decided to stay, because the positive aspects shouldn’t be ignored either. Rent is reasonably priced at $525 CAD for Halifax, you can’t beat the location, walk home in the evening, has many shops right around the corner and it is a 20-minute walk to the university or you can take the bus, which also stops not far from the YMCA. The rent also includes the use of the integrated fitness studio and the employees were all very friendly and mostly took care of the problems and concerns of the residents. The rooms in the YMCA are very small, all differently “decorated” and dirty, you should be prepared to have to clean first and to stock up on things like Wal-Mart like table lamps, bedding, hangers, drying racks, kitchen utensils, etc., it It is therefore advisable to bring as much as possible from home, especially when it comes to bedding. In my opinion you shouldn’t have any problems studying in a library as the general noise level in the YMCA is relatively high, Especially if you have ventilation systems in front of your window or the bathroom door in front of your room door, you will experience one or the other sleepless night. The time at the YMCA was certainly adventurous, but if you don’t have too high expectations and don’t spend too much time in your room, I think the YMCA is okay for the time, I haven’t regretted it despite everything.

I felt comfortable during my time in Halifax. The city is very well laid out and you really have no problems finding your way around, but if you ever needed help, the friendly Canadians were always very helpful. A lot of students live in Halifax and you can find a pub or something like that with something going on every evening. However, the nightlife takes some getting used to at first, you always have to show ID everywhere and it can happen that you are banned from the house without warning. Most discos and bars were only open until 2am, when the lights would come on and the music shut down regardless of the number of visitors, but there was clearly no shortage of partying in Halifax. Since I chose Halifax mainly because of the university and knew

Costs:

For four months, the costs incurred should not be underestimated. The tuition fees are incurred per course and are of course very high compared to Germany. The compulsory literature for the university is very expensive, but you can return it at the end and get about half back. Groceries etc. are also not as cheap as you can get in Germany. So you should plan enough money to have enough money left over for leisure activities.

The MicroEdu staff were really helpful and the application was very easy.
I can only recommend a semester abroad in Halifax at Saint Mary’s University, organized through MicroEdu.