Experience report
ANR: 357360
Name: Sjoerd van Veenendaal
E-mail: sjoerdvveenendaal@gmail.com
Exchange semester: Fall
Academic year: 2013-2014
Host University: Queen’s University
Country: Canada
TOPIC: Admission, arrival, housing
Queen’s university has several options for international students. They have two residence halls for
which you can subscribe as an international student: Harkness International Hall & Jean Royce Hall.
Chances that you are getting in are slim. There are way more international students than rooms.
Another option, which I did as well, is find your own house. Kingston is city with a lot of students, so
also a lot people who are searching for a room. I went to Kingston without knowing were to life.
However, one of my colleagues from Tilburg arrived two weeks earlier and did not had problems
finding a house. Luckily for me, there was one room empty in which I lived for the next 4 months.
TOPIC: Location of university/city
Kingston is a city with, more or less, 100.000 inhabitants from which 25.000 are students. You can
imagine that this means the whole city runs on these people. This means that there are a lot of bars,
clubs and restaurants who provide you with a proper meal for a (relative) low price.
The university is located in the south of Kingston, by the lake. It is a huge area with a lot of high
buildings, sports fields and accomodations for students. Because everything is located at one spot, all
the houses around it are for students, which gives it a nice atmosphere. If you want to go for a drink
you have to go downtown, which is 10min walk from campus. But you don’t have to walk; with your
studentcard you can take every bus in Kingston.
If you want to go shopping you have to go to ‘cataraqui’ which is a shoppingmall in the west of
Kingston. Kingston doesn’t have a city centre as we know from the Netherlands. Cataraqui is also
easily accessible by bus.
TOPIC: Academics
At Queen’s you can choose your own courses, which you follow in classes with not more than 35
students. This makes it really interactive and personal. The teacher knows you by name and is always
prepared to help you besides the regular classes. Participation is required and a part of your mark will
depend on how much you participated. Participation means attending lectures, ask questions and
participating in class discussions.
I followed the courses; International Negotiations, Sales Management, Service Management,
Marketing Research and Doing Business in the Asia-Pacific Rim. I am really satisfied with the first two.
These two courses really focusses on your skills. First you learn the sales techniques and later on in
the semester you have to use these in real life. Marketing consists of a huge project which you work
on throughout the semester. Service management makes use of really good reallife Harvard cases, in
which you have to find a problem and solve it, or improve the current state of business. The Asia
course is more theoretical, but really interesting. Mainly because my knowledge about Asia is almost
nothing. I completed all courses with really good marks and a feeling that I really learned something.
Overall, I am really satisfied about Queen’s university. It is a professional university who wants to be
the best business school of Canada, which it shows on al aspects.
TOPIC: Social life
Queen’s has a student organization who arranges all kind of trips for exchange students for a low
price. This way you get to know a lot of other exchange students. The Canucks are really friendly and
interested in your story about your home country. Getting in contact with these people is therefore
definitely not difficult. But, overall you make more friends with other exchange students. Simply
because everyone is the same situation.
For sure I travelled a lot. I have seen every big city on the west coast of Canada. Besides that I went
on a camping trip, New York, Washington and one week to the Bahamas to relax and to get away
from the snow. I went on all these trips with other exchange students.
TOPIC: Living costs
Canada is a really expensive country, especially food and beverages. Beforehand I expected that the
exchange was going to cost me a lot of money. That is why I started to put some money aside when I
started my studies. This gave me a nice budget to buy food and gave me the opporturnity to do a lot
of fun things.
I spend 675CAD on housing each month. At least 300CAD on food each week and a few hundred on
supplies for the university (Books, Readers etc.). I did a lot of traveling as I mentioned before, this
costed me a lot of money. However, I recommend each student to travel a lot, you never know when
you will be there again.
When you go out to the bar or club, keep in mind that the prices are really high. You pay easily 6CAD
for a beer, which is almost 5 euro.
TOPIC: Culture
Canada is just like the Netherlands; a western, well-being and a economicly healthy country. There
are not much of culture differences. There are a few things which I think were funny or strange. Let
me take for example the strange music that they are listening to in the club. We in the Netherlands
like to listen to House or Dance music, where people in Kingston like to listen to country. There is one
special evening, on Tuesday, which is called ‘Tumbler Weed’. The whole evening there is country
music and everyone dresses up as a cowgirl or cowboy. Something that graps your attention
immediately when you arrive in Canada, are all the fastfood shops. There really is a fastfood culture,
so watch out that you don’t go there to much. Relatively it is not that expensive.
The Canadiens are really nice people. If there is a problem, everyone wants to help you; students,
staff but also random people on the street. US citizans are more aggressive and moody compared to
the Canadiens. In the Bahamas, people are really friendly, but this is mainly because they want your
money.
TOPIC: Personal development
One thing that I regret is that I met some dutch people and everytime I saw them, we spoke dutch. It
is nice to have some dutch friends, it makes you feel comfortable and it is always easy to talk with.
However, I always admired my French housemates. Those two girls always spoke French together,
they refused to speak French. This way you are alays practicing the language.
My best experience was definitely the camping trip. Together with my housemates we decided to go
camping. In the beginning of October we made our own fire and washed ourselves in the river. It was
the best weekend of my exchange. I don’t have a ‘worst’ experience, those four months were the best
of my life until now.
I learned to be self-assertive, you have to arrange everything yourself. Of course you get some help
from both universities, but in Kingston there is a lot you have to do yourself, like finding a place to life.
Besides that, I really want to go back to America. I like the atmosphere, culture, people and the vibe.
TOPIC: Tips for future students
For sure I recommend an exchange. It made me the person I am today, which is way more mature
than when I left to Canada. Kingston is a bustling city for students. A huge university (which is one of
the best of Canada), a lake, clubs and pubs makes this city close to perfect for students. Besides that,
if you like to travel; Kingston is located between Montreal and Toronto which makes it easy to travel
around Canada or even America.
You have to bring ‘hagelslag’, that is one of the things I really missed in Kingston. Besides that you
have to take into account that you arrive in the summer and leave in the beginning of the winter,
which means that there is snow. So bring shirts and shorts, but also sweaters and thermo clothes.
TOPIC: A picture is worth a thousand words