Student Report
Name of the University: Memorial University of Newfoundland
(MUN)
Exchange semester: Fall 2012
I. PRACTICAL INFORMATION
Before leaving Norway
We received all the information regarding classes, housing, buddy program etc. via email. The necessary admission papers to show when entering the country came in the
mail a few weeks before our departure.
The university prioritizes full-time students when they assign student dorms, meaning
that students staying less than one full year are not applicable for dorm rooms. If you
are going on exchange during the spring semester they can put you on the waiting list.
However, their website provides you with the necessary information regarding offcampus housing, so this worked out just fine.
Applying for a visa (if applicable)
Norwegian citizens do not need visa to enter Canada. You only need the admission
papers from the school when entering the country. It is important to keep them in your
hand luggage because you have to show them at the beginning.
Travel
We flew from Oslo via Iceland and Halifax to St. John’s. We met prior to the flight
from Iceland to Halifax. The only problem we encountered on the way was a delay
from Iceland to Halifax, resulting in a missed flight and spending our first night on
Canadian soil in the departure lounge on Halifax airport.
Housing
As mentioned, housing is not provided for students staying at Memorial less than one
calendar year (three semesters). We booked a room at a hostel in downtown, and spent
the first 4-5 days looking for apartments online. The university discourages making
housing arrangements before you see the apartment yourself, as students apparently
have been scammed earlier. They do however provide a list of ads they have checked
out on their website, guaranteeing that you will not fall for someone’s attempt to
exploit naive exchange students.
Almost all the exchange students we met there did the same thing as we did, and they
all found apartments during the first few days. MUN recommends that you arrive
approximately one week before the school starts, and we would do the same. The
more time you have to go to see apartments, the higher the probability that you will
find one you like. Also, we would recommend booking a hostel/hotel as soon as you
book your flight. We did not, and one of us ended up booking a double room with an
Italian exchange student he had only talked to on Facebook because everything else
was full when he went to book one week before leaving Norway. The Italian guy
ended up being one of our best friends there, but we would still prefer our own room if
we could have chosen again.
Costs
Rent
Books
Food
Transport
Other
3000 NOK
1700 NOK
1500 NOK
375 NOK
500 NOK
Rent there is cheaper in Norway. Of the exchange students we met, one of us had the
highest monthly rent. One of us paid less than 3000 NOK per month, including
Internet and utilities.
Books are really expensive! We were lucky enough to only need two books, but we
only got one of them second-hand. The other one was around 1200 NOK brand new,
and that was the normal price per book there. You can also buy books together with
other exchange students so that it is less per person.
You have to pay for health insurance, which costs CAD 240. This is mandatory for all
international and exchange students. This is even though you have insurance back
home in Norway.
Food is a little cheaper in Norway. We spent around 100 NOK per day on food, which
is less than we spend at home. But that was mostly due to the fact that it took us a total
of 40 minutes to walk to and from the supermarket and that we, to avoid the walk
every day, planned dinners for 3-4 days at a time. One of the supermarkets, Sobeys,
has student discount on Tuesdays (20%) which was the day we did most of grocery
shopping.
A semester bus pass (only available to MBA students) cost CAD 250, which is about
the same as in Oslo.
Alcohol was way cheaper than in Norway when you bought it in bars (3 for $5 on
Thursdays), but only a little bit cheaper in the liquor stores.
Culture and language
Being in English-speaking Canada we had very few problems with the language. The
“Newfie” accent is somewhat similar to Irish and can be a bit difficult to understand,
but we met very few people who actually spoke this accent. Most people sounded like
Americans to us, except for a few words (about being one of them and the
pronunciation of the letter O).
The people in St. John’s are incredibly friendly, so if you make an effort to become
friends with some locals’ chances are you could be invited to their house for
Thanksgiving etc. We were several times invited for dinner at their homes by some of
the Canadian students. As far as travelling goes, it is more difficult to get around than
it would be in Norway. There are no trains in all of Newfoundland, and the bus routes
are few and far between. We rented a car a few times when we went on weekend trips,
and if you are 5 people per car the price is not that bad. Airplane tickets to and from
St. John’s are also more expensive than in mainland Canada because it is so far east.
Cultural and social effects from the exchange experience
Going on exchange is challenging, because you suddenly find yourself alone in
another country, speaking a different language. You have to interact with people and
make new friends, you have to find a place to live, you have to sort out all the
paperwork at the university and you have to find your way around in a new city. It
might seem overwhelming in the beginning, but after a while, when things start falling
into place, it is really rewarding to see that it all works out. We left Canada with a
higher self-esteem, better social skills and lots of memories.
When you live in another country you get a sneak-peak into a different culture. Even
though the Canadian way of life is not that different from the Norwegian, it was
interesting to notice certain differences and to realise that our opinion was “the
different one”. Experiencing another culture like this makes you more tolerant to
people in general and people with different cultural background in particular.
Going on exchange does not give you much (more than staying at home, that is) in
terms of academic capabilities, but as mentioned above you get experiences you will
not get by doing your whole degree in Norway. Also, speaking and writing English
every day improved our language skills quite a bit, particularly because we were at a
place where people have English as their first language.
II. ABOUT THE SCHOOL
Memorial University is located just outside downtown St. John’s and borders to a
forest/walking area. It is a regular university, not a business school like BI and offers
both undergraduate and graduate programs within various academic fields, including
natural sciences, athletics, business, medicine and social sciences.. These are located
in individual buildings, resulting in a rather large campus area. On campus you will
find everything you would expect to find, including library, study areas, a bookstore, a
gym with pool facilities, soccer field, basketball court and running track, coffee shops
and a student pub. Due to heavy snowfalls in the winter there is a tunnel system
underneath the ground connected to most buildings on campus (unfortunately not the
business building). According to their website Memorial currently holds
approximately 18 000 students. The share of exchange students is not listed, but the
semester we were there we met around 30 in the business faculty alone.
Course registration
After you get accepted you get an e-mail with a link to the course descriptions for the
courses offered the coming semester. After reading these you are asked to list the
courses that interest you, in order of priority, and based on your academic background
you get signed up for the necessary number of courses. When you arrive in St. John’s
you should meet up with the International Officer in the Business Faculty and confirm
which courses you got signed up for. If desirable you can change courses even after
the first week or two of lectures.
Academic calendar
Arrival date:
First day of the semester:
Last day of classes:
Examination period:
Any special events/holidays:
August 28th
September 5th
Late November
December 5th-14th
Thanksgiving weekend
and memorial
weekend
Other:
Arrival
One of our first days in St. John’s we went to the university to make sure everything
was in order. As mentioned, we saw the International Officer in the Business Faculty
to sort out which courses to take. When we introduced ourselves she found a folder
containing all our information, including academic transcripts and what courses we
had taken at BI, and told us which courses we could choose from. She was well
prepared (way more than we were) and helped us understand everything we needed to
know.
In one of the initial e-mail you receive there is a check-list of “to do”-activities before
you leave. One of these is to sign up for a volunteer pick-up at the airport. This is
totally free, and it means that a volunteer student meets you at the airport, takes a cab
with you to your hostel/hotel/apartment (and pays for it) and gives you an opportunity
to get answers to the many questions you have. Unfortunately, because we missed our
flight from Halifax and was unable to inform anyone of this, the student meeting us
waited for us the night we were scheduled to arrive while we landed and had to pay for
our own cab the next morning.
The university held several information meetings and some meet-n-greet happenings
during introduction week, but unfortunately we and some other exchange students
ended up going to the meet-n-greet for the undergraduates. We didn’t bother going to
the one for graduate students the next day as it felt somewhat irrelevant for us
exchange students. The Business Faculty arranged some happenings, for the exchange
students only. An information session where we were told basically everything we
needed to know (and who to ask if we had more questions) was followed by a “photo
hunt” (us running around campus taking pictures at different places) and pizza in the
evening. We were also assigned to the Buddy program, meaning that all of the
exchange students were given one volunteer student we could ask for help figuring out
stuff the first few weeks. We only talked to our buddy once, but several of the other
exchange students became friends and hung out with their buddies throughout the
semester.
Social activities
Based on the recipients of the e-mails sent out by the international office at MUN, one
student created a group on Facebook for the exchange students doing Business during
the fall semester. This way we came in contact with each other before we left, and it
turned out that most of us chose to stay at the same hostel. That meant that within 10
minutes after arriving at the hostel we had met around 10 of the guys we hung out with
most of the semester. We went looking for apartments together at daytime and went
out for a few beers every night while we stayed at the hostel. It was a great start to the
semester and a good way to make new friends, especially because the university didn’t
arrange any get-together parties like at BI. We did a lot of things together as a large
group (approx. 40). We were part of a football team created by exchange students,
shopping trips to the city major shopping malls, trips to museums, cooking various
international foods together as well as exploring Canadian restaurants etc. Since we
had most of our classes together we spend a lot of time together both in and outside of
school. At the end we became very close to the other exchange students (especially
those in the business faculty).
We only got to know a few Canadian students towards the end of the semester,
because that’s when we started working on the group projects that was due in
November. Before this we mostly stayed with the exchange students, but we wish we
had made an effort to get to know some Canadian students sooner.
There is a student organisation at the university, with a department especially for
exchange students. They arranged coffee clubs every week where you could go meet
other exchange student (from all the faculties) and ask senior students about anything.
We never went there unfortunately, but it sounded like a good service. They also
arranged other activities throughout the semester, like hikes, paintball and hockey
matches.
III. ACADEMICS
In the classroom
The teaching style is a little different from that in Norway. The classes are really
small, usually less than 20 students, and you are expected to talk more than in Norway
(at least in some of the classes I took). Being in Canada the language of instruction
was English. This was not a problem, but we found ourselves to be a little more selfconscious about grammar and pronunciation than usual. The exchange students were
held to the same standards as the Canadian students on hand-ins. The academic level
was about the same as at BI in terms of difficulty, but a little higher in terms of
workload. We were hoping for a semester with a lighter workload based on what we
heard from inbound exchange students at BI, but we were in for a surprise. After the
first few weeks the hand-ins and presentations started, and they kept coming until the
end of the semester. It was really interesting and definitely a learning experience, but
it would be difficult to relax for three months and then rely on all-night studying
during the examination period. The teaching was very practical, with cases and reallife examples being used all the time. The teachers made an effort to remember all the
students’ names by heart, and usually had it down by the third lecture or so. We got to
know our teachers there better than we have had at BI, which we found motivating. It
was easier to ask them questions both inside and outside of class, and we got the
impression they cared more about our learning than our previous professors.
Course materials
We had four courses, and we only needed two books. The other two courses were
based on power point slides, basic theory (the professor lent us a book when we asked
him about this) and an online case collection. All the material was in English, and the
level, both in terms of difficulty and amount, was about the same as at BI.
Exams
All of our four classes required handed-in reports and presentations, and in two of
them the entire grade was based on this. The other two were based on mid-terms, inclass quizzes and final exams (where the exam accounted for approx. 40% of the total
grade) as well. It is worth noting that the grading system over there is different from
that at BI, as they only use the grades A, B and F (fail). 0-64% gives you an F, 65-79%
gives you a B and 80-100% gives you a well-deserved A. This means that it is easier
to get an A, but at the same time “easier” to fail.
Library and technology
The library, as the rest of the campus, showed signs of being founded in 1949. The
buildings and facilities were old and worn compared to BI, without it representing a
problem. The classrooms all had projectors and computers, but everything else was
not as modern as at BI. There were two exceptions though, namely the computers at
the library and the gym. The library computers were all new and responded way faster
than those at BI (we probably saved hours waiting for webpages to load!), and the
fitness studio, pool and running track was no more than 5-6 years old. While the
computers at the library were of higher standard than at BI, the printing system was
not. Adding money to your student card was more complicated, especially without a
Canadian bank account, and your prints were sent to a physical printer immediately,
you didn’t have the option to change printer if there was a queue. Not to mention that
the printer in the Business building was more expensive and took 10 minutes or more
to print a 4-page power point slide.
The teachers used the same technology as at BI, with projectors in class and an on-line
solution for publishing slides and course material and collecting papers and
assignments (similar to @BI and It’s Learning).
Description of courses
Below is a list of the courses we took. They were all graduate courses and all free electives as
we did not choose a minor.
BUSI 8209 – Leadership & Interpersonal Skills for managers
The aim of this course was to provide the students with various leadership techniques when/if
they become leaders. We found a few of the techniques, like time management and stress
management, to be useful, but we think they are more beneficial in someone’s everyday life
than as special “management skills”. The classes were spent applying the theory we were
supposed to read in advance to various cases, an exercise we found confusing and completely
useless. We were required to hand in two individual “learning journals” during the semester,
where we should apply one of the aforementioned techniques to our everyday life and write or
make a personal video about any outcomes/improvements. In addition to these the grade was
based on a case-based group assignment where we were supposed to use the management
skills to find a solution to various real-life problems, also confusing and frustrating like the inclass discussions. All in all we liked the book and the techniques it presented, but found the
lectures to be a waste of time in spite of the lecturer’s efforts to make it otherwise.
BUSI 9308 – New Venture Creation
This class presented us a framework to structure the process of starting up your own business.
We found this interesting, and the idea behind the framework to be logical. However, we feel
that the professor failed to explain it properly and presented it to the students as if we knew it
as well as he did. The grade was based on a project running through the whole semester,
where we were supposed to come up with a business idea and do research and planning in
groups. The final report was due the last lecture, but the professor wanted weekly progress
updates. The final business plan was presented to the whole class and three external judges
with experience as venture capitalists.
BUSI 9312 – Financial Management
This course required basic knowledge about financial theory. The course was case-based
where one group were to present an analysis of real-life historical business cases each week.
The students should act as consultants presenting their analysis and recommendations. The
cases touched upon valuation, liquidation, lease vs. buy-decisions among other things. A
tough course with a demanding professor, but he was fair and the course proved to be very
educational.
BUSI 9326 – International Finance
The course focused on issues a multinational company might encounter when establishing a
subsidiary in another country. Such issues included currency risk, derivates and hedging,
import restrictions, tolls, country risks, capital structure and pro-forma financial statements.
Grade based on in-class quizzes, a mid-term exam (at the end of the semester) and the report
and presentation of a case lasting the whole semester. This was a very useful course with a
good teacher.
BUSI 9328 – Change Management
This course focused on the organizational adaptation to change in both macro and micro
aspect. It involved a lot of presentation in class, both of articles and cases. And sometimes it
seemed to be the only thing we did. The final “exam” was an individual Termpaper about a
chosen topic. The teacher was unclear about the deadline for paper, and did not provide much
feedback during one class where we were supposed to present our individual papers.
However, the topics were very interesting and useful since we had real-life cases in almost all
of our classes. Even though there were a bit too many student presentations sometimes.