Student Report
Name of the University: Schulich Business School, York University
Exchange semester: Fall, 2013
I. PRACTICAL INFORMATION
Before leaving Norway
York University will send you all the information you need before leaving Norway. In
advance of leaving, if you are a Norwegian citizen, you should get a confirmation
from HELFO Norge (you may need to contact Lånekassen first). If you do not get this
confirmation, you can end up paying the required school insurance, which Norwegian
citizens are exempted. Lånekassen took three months before answering my request, so
be sure to do this early.
Applying for a visa (if applicable)
Norwegian citizens did not need to apply for a student visa as long as the study time
was less than 6 months.
Travel
I travelled by plane with a connecting flight in Europe. There is possible to use an
American airport for your connecting flight as well, but then you have to go through
immigration and apply for ESTA.
Housing
I chose to rent an apartment downtown in Toronto. The school is approximately 1 hour
away from the city core, but it is worth it. The campus is located in a neighbourhood,
which has a bad reputation and is not known for being too safe at night time.
Furthermore, there is not much to do outside the campus and the students living there
were easily bored and felt sometimes isolated.
York University did assist me during my house searching process and were very
helpful. They made sure that the apartment I wanted was nice and attended a showing
before advising me to go further or not, which was extremely convenient.
Costs
I chose to rent my own place, so I had to pay more than usual. But you can get a nice
room for 700-1000 CAD in the downtown area.
The prices of the books were approximately the same as in Norway, but some of the
books were available as ebooks, making it cheaper. I paid in total 400 CAD for 5
courses (I dropped one course, but it was not possible to get a refund). Food is less
expensive than Norway, where you can get a nice and big meal for 10 CAD. However,
it is easy to get bad habits and eat out every day. Restaurants is less expensive than
Norway, but if you include tax (13 %) and tip (15 %), it easy to be tricked into
thinking that it is cheaper than what it actually is. Regarding transport, I chose to buy
tokens and not a monthly pass. This is because I only had classes three times a week at
campus and tokens did only cost 2.65 CAD (package deal when you bought several
together) against the monthly pass cost of 107 CAD.
Culture and language
Norwegians will not have any language problems, even though you are not
comfortable speaking and/or writing English. You will most likely be better than most
of the exchange students, but you will also improve your English skills since you have
classes with Canadians students and professors and live in an English-speaking
country.
It is possible to travel to travel within Canada, and the exchange students often plan
trips together. When it comes to cultures, Toronto have many places where you can
experience foreign cultures (Chinatown, Little Portugal, Koreatown, Little Italy, etc.),
at the same time as you experience the Canadian culture.
II. ABOUT THE SCHOOL
The Schulich Business School is one of many schools affiliated to York University.
They have over 50 000 students and is located 1 hour from the city core, when using
public transportation.
The study structure is different, where Schulich has more assignments, midterms and
presentations which will count extra for your grade in relation to BI. Furthermore, it is
not necessarily given that you will have final exam in the courses you have chosen.
Course registration
I registered for courses before coming to Toronto. I did this online. There were
possible to both add (as long as they are not full) and drop courses, even though the
semester had started. This was not hard and was possible to do online, but those
courses should be approved by BI. If you are uncertain on some of the courses you
have registered for, it can be smart to postpone buying books before you are certain.
Academic calendar
Arrival date:
First day of the semester:
Last day of classes:
Examination period:
Any special events/holidays:
August 27th
September 5th
December 9th-13th
Thanksgiving (October
14th), Reading Week
(October 22 th -25th)
Other:
We had a reading week in late October, which can be convenient if you are planning a
trip. However, many of the midterms were the week after.
The International Office
The International Office has helped me before and throughout the semester by
assisting me and they sends out all relevant information.
Social activities
The relationship between exchange students and native students are very good,
especially since Canadians are extremely welcoming and including people. However,
most of the exchange students did spend their social time together and not with the
locals.
One gathering for the MBA students is the Schulympics. This is a weekend trip, where
you are able to get to know the native and exchange students better. This was a very
fun social event.
III. ACADEMICS
In the classroom
You will develop a closer relationship to the professors, where they will call you by
your first name. The classes will maximum have 40 students, but the classes I took had
25 students or less.
There are several assignments and presentations, more than what I was used to at BI.
This is highlighted by the fact that I only had final exam in 2 of 4 courses. The
transition may be hard, especially since all the assignments and presentations will be
part of your grade. However, I felt that the courses were easier than BI (less
theoretical).
In several courses, class participation did count for your grade. The atmosphere in the
class was the same level as formal/informal as BI, but the professors tried to learn
your first name. This helped to establish a more personal relationship between students
and professors.
The workload at Schulich is more than at BI, but since you have more assignments
and not every class have a final exam, the exam period is less stressful.
Library and technology
The library is nice, but the computers are a little slow and limited. There is also not as
many study places in relation to students. However, in Finance courses you can take
advantage of the Bloomberg Terminals located at school, which was a great tool for
both my Investment and Economic Forecasting and Analysis courses.
Description of courses
All the classes I took were for MBA students, so the academic level was high. I did
not experience any enrolment issues for any of the courses. It was expected/mandatory
class attendance in all of the classes.
ECON 6210 Economic Forecasting and Analysis – Perry Sadorsky
Business Forecasting, John E. Hanke and Dean W. Wichern
This class focused on combining an individual project with the curriculum presented.
During the semester we had three assignments related to this project (3x10%), one
presentation (10%) and a term paper (30%). In addition, the course had a midterm
(30%). The curriculum was, as the name of the class indicates, about forecasting and
analysing these forecasts. This class was very practical, because of the individual
project, and highly relevant for my economics major.
FINE 5200 Managerial Finance – Yisong Tian
Fundamentals of Corporate Finance, Stephen A. Ross, Bradford D. Jordan, Randolph W.
Westerfield and Gordon S. Roberts
This class was a typical finance class, where they did focus on the practical and not too
much on the theoretical. We had two assignments (2x7.5%), homework every week
(5%), midterm (25%) and final exam (55%). As long as you did the assignments,
suggested problems and the homework, you were prepared for the midterm and final
exam. Since the course was practical, the relevance is high, to prepare students for the
work life.
FINE 6200 Investments – Mark Kamstra
Investments, Zvi Bodie, Alex Kane and Alan J. Marcus
This class focused on combining an investment challenge and regular class
completion. The investment challenge was a group project, where you created a stock
account and were going to invest by following an investment strategy, then analysing
the results (25 %). Class participation was 10 % of the grade, but was evaluated on if
you handed in all of the homework. Furthermore, we had a midterm (25 %) and a final
exam (40 %). As long as you did the homework each week and focused on the lecture
slides, you were prepared for the midterm and the final exam. Because of the
investment challenge, we actually learnt how to invest and not only theoretical, which
made the course highly relevant.
FINE 6500 Behavioural Finance – Mark Kamstra
Behavioural Finance: Psychology, Decision-Making and Markets, Lucy F Ackert and
Richard Deaves
This class focused on the behavioural aspect of finance. This was an interesting class,
where we had three individual quizzes (3x10 %), class participation (10 %), three
assignments (3x3.33 %), book report and presentation (30 %), lead a class (10 %) and
an individual article report (10 %). There were a lot of assignments in this class related
to the market anomalies. These anomalies contradict the efficient market hypothesis.
Class participation was evaluated on how active you were in class. The book was easy
to read, so if you read the assigned weekly readings and the lecture slides, you were
prepared for the quizzes. The presentations were pretty straight forward and should not
be a concern. This class was highly relevant, since you are learning about empirical
studies in finance and not basing the curriculum on theoretical models.
The experience from a social and academic point of view makes the semester
worth it. You will expand your network and get international friends which
contribute to make the exchange memorable for a lifetime.
(BI can use my comments)