This is a posting about how the opportunity to go on exchange came about. Special thanks to my CAWIC friends who suggested it. On a little tangent, CAWIC, or the Canadian Association for Women in Construction is a great organization that brings together women from all aspects of the construction and building industry. Its a great sisterhood and I was privileged to have been a bursary recipient which is what initially drew me to the organization. I have since continued to be mentored by one of their members and participated in a Habitat for Humanity build with other CAWIC members. If you'd like to know more, check out their website
here.
Ok back to how I found the opportunity to go on exchange. During my first degree, a BA in
dance and
architecture from the University of Calgary, a classmate of mine went away on exchange to Hawaii for a semester. I remember thinking that I wish I had known about it. Who wouldn't want to explore the possibility of going somewhere exotic for school?!?! So when I knew I would be pursuing a second undergraduate degree, I had my mind set! I was going to go abroad for a semester.
In fact, it was one of the reasons I picked Ryerson in the first place. There are several different ways that schools offer opportunities to go away for schooling. A university will make agreements with other institutions and different programs have different "partner" schools. This is a fluctuating thing as different years offer different spots for Ryerson students. I chose Ryerson based on the fact that it offered opportunities to go to New Zealand or Australia for exchange, a region of the world I really want to go to.
Exchange at Ryerson happens during the second semester or Winter semester of third year. There are a couple exceptions to that - my friend went to Manchester this past semester and had an amazing time. I have friends who went to the Netherlands (in Journalism) and Coventry (in Architecture). I have only heard wonderful things about their experiences away. When I was in my second year I went to an information session about what the opportunities were for our year. There we were told what schools we could apply for, what the application process is and when we needed to apply by. Here are the steps:
1. Attend Information Session
2. Research
available schools and get a better understanding of the nature of each program. Pick your top 3
3. Fill out Online Application and Print
4. Write a short essay on why you want to go on exchange, what schools you have picked as your top three and why, how going away for a semester will benefit your career development, what you have to offer as an ambassador or Ryerson University.
5. Bring the printed copy of the online application and the short essay to the person in charge of Exchange for your program.
This was all due around the end of January last year.
Next I had an in-person interview with 2 members of your faculty. I was asked questions like, have you ever been overseas before? Describe a stressful travel experience and how you handled it. Why do you want to go to your chosen schools? What do you have to offer as an exchange student?
At this point in the process we discovered that several of the schools which we thought were options were no longer available. One of my choices was gone from the list but for a friend of mine, all 3 of her top choices were no longer available and she had to submit additional choices.
After what felt like a very very long wait, we were informed that there were only 5 spots available for the 12 applicants (many people missed the deadline cause it was a busy time at school). Everyone that was selected was off to a different school. We found out the results in the middle of April so you can see the process took a while. At this point it is only considered a conditional acceptance. After applying to our selected institution through there own application process, sometime in the middle of November I finally received my official offer of admission and Certification of Enrollment.
One person went to
Manchester Metropolitan University (later a second spot opened up so two of my classmates have just returned from Manchester). One person is at
Hong Kong Polytechnic University. One person is going to
Curtin University of Technology in Perth Australia, one person is going to
Auckland University of Technology in Auckland New Zealand, and I am going to the
University of South Australia (UniSA) in Adelaide Australia. So there are a total of 6 people from my year going on exchange and almost everyone is going on there own. Exciting and nerve racking at the same time.
One other thing to keep in mind is your finances. As a mature student who lives on her own in downtown Toronto, the cost of going on exchange is manageable. My biggest extra costs are the flight there, a student visa (or in my unique case a working holiday visa **check with your country's consulate to make sure you're getting the right one), and Overseas Student Health Coverage (Ryerson's health plan only covers you for up to 60 days outside of Canada). Then you have to check the difference in cost of living- in my case, Adelaide is actually very expensive so my rent is going to be more there than it is here. One of the big sources of funding is a scholarship called OIEOS or the Ontario International Exchange Opportunity Scholarship. It is Province wide and worth $2500. For this award I needed to fill out an application form, a projected budget and a statement of financial need (a little essay on why I need the money). Lucky for me my application was successful which helps a tremendous amount because a round trip flight from Toronto to Adelaide is about $2500.
From there I had lots of logistics to take care of, but that is how I was selected from my class to go on exchange.
The city I am heading to is called Adelaide and is the capital city of the province of South Australia. It is also considered the 5th largest city in Australia with a population of about 1.2 million people. I've heard it compared to Calgary in size and overall vibe.
