York University, Toronto
Final Report
York University
Johanna Fuoss
E-mail: hanna-fuoss@gmx.de
Winter semester 2012
Toronto, Canada
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York University, Toronto
Preparation and Expenses
I studied my 4th semester at the York University of Toronto. I stayed there from January till
April, and spent further weeks travelling. My subject is media and communication studies.
During my term at York, I could take any class within the liberal arts and had many courses to
choose from.
To organize an exchange in Canada, it is important to know, that you don’t need a visa if you
stay less than six months. This makes it a great alternative to the USA as you safe a lot of
money, time and trouble at the airport.
A further important information is, that life in Canada is very expensive. As a German, I
already thought, that Austria is not exactly cheap, but it’s nothing compared to Toronto.
Especially food and rental fees are very high, as well as some of the study equipment. Due to
their copyright, a simple course booklet from your professor, which is around 2,50,-€ in
Klagenfurt, costs at least 40,00,-$ in Canada. But you need them for your exams and therefore
have to buy them.
Hence, it’s adjuvant to safe money elsewhere. One easy way to keep some bucks in your
pocket is by booking your flight early. I paid. 900,-€ but it starts from 600,-€ if you book a
few months ahead, and you can even get continuous flights. Unfortunately my whole trip was
on short-notice as I had some circumstances with my accommodation. Therefore I arrived 10
days after the term officially started and missed orientation week. This is not to be
recommended, as most students at York start in September anyway and the few who also
started in January already found their people. But the Canadian students are very openminded and it’s not hard to meet people if you are not too shy.
To have some help getting along, I applied for a buddy program. Unfortunately it started a
few weeks after I came to York. Therefore, I did not have a mentor during my orientation
period. Although I had a very busy buddy, and didn’t meet her a lot, she was still of use, as I
could always send her mails whenever I had any questions.
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York University, Toronto
Climate
The Canadian climate is best known for its cold winter days. Toronto, which is in the very
south of Canada, is not really affected by the cold weather, and the temperature is comparable
with Germany or Austria. Although I visited it during the worst winter days, there was not
even that much snow and it already started to warm up in March. Although it’s not ice cold, it
is very windy and I had to face some stormy nights.
Housing
I chose to live at a dormitory called Stong Residence. A dorm seemed to be the easiest way,
as they are built directly on campus and you can reach anything by foot. But I recognized very
soon, that it was not the best idea as it was a freshman residence, and all the other people were
around 18 and 19 years young.
The rooms were ok, but looked like prison cells (see picture above) and were tiny and
expensive with bad equipment. I had a built in closet, a bed, two chairs and a desk and paid
ca. 630,- $ a month. Bedding stuff had to be brought by yourself.
Further, one floor, which inhabited around 30 people, always had to share one bathroom with
4 toilets and 3 showers. Boys and girls had no separate sanitary facilities, what felt very weird
at the beginning.
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York University, Toronto
Two floors together always shared one common room with TV, sofas, fridge, sink, microwave
and some recycling bins. You couldn’t really cook anything, because every dorm room
comes with a 1500,-$ meal plan . You had to spend all of it, because at the end of the term,
you wouldn’t get any money back. You could by your meals all around the (fast-)food places
on campus. The food was not really healthy and except for two salad bars, there weren’t a lot
of alternatives for vegetarians or vegans.
Apart from the dorms, there is also a place called “the village”. It’s a neighborhood next to
the university and offers houses for students. You do not need the meal plan and can share a
house with a couple of other people. It offers you the possibility to be close to campus, but
still live independently. Although it’s a little bit more expensive, it’s a much better alternative
if you don’t want to live in a dorm.
Campus
The Keele Campus at York is huge and inhabits around 10.000 students. It almost feels like a
little city on its own, but you can still reach anything by foot. Usually, it took me 10 or 15
minutes to walk to the buildings where I had my courses. Other than lecture halls and
auditoriums, you’ll find many libraries, little stores, fast- food places, cafeterias, a few bars, a
book shop, delicious coffee-shops and much more.
Though the campus doesn’t look very pretty in winter, it starts to become really beautiful in
spring. There are many green areas with benches and other places to sit down, study or just
hang out. In the middle of the main campus area is even a larger green place with a big
fountain, where, like in the movies, you can see students hanging out in different kind of
groups. The sport guys play Frisbee or basketball, the artistic guys sit in a circle and play
instruments or sing along and the nerds … well, I didn’t really see any typical nerds. Anyway,
the campus is great and there are not only many fun things to do, but also great facilities with
fantastic study equipment.
Classes
The classes at York are fantastic. I really appreciated the student-teacher relationship. It is
way more casual than in Austria or Germany and the professors share many personal
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York University, Toronto
anecdotes. Compared to how I knew it, there is much more communication between student
and teacher and they operate on the same level.
The classes were held in discussion form and everybody enthusiastically anticipated. The
students were very engaged and one wild discussion followed the other. It was also normal to
prepare little presentations or homework for the following class. .
Although, I was late, I managed to get some courses I really liked. At York five courses per
term is your personal maximum and you get around 3 ECTS for each of them. I chose to take
four, and was very happy with that decision as all of them were very time consuming. If it
comes to your courses, it is important to know that York does not treat their exchange
students with any kind of priority, and if you come too late, you are too late! So, don’t let the
good courses get snatched away right under your nose and enroll as soon as possible!
Free time and activities
York offers many free time activities. There are many clubs you can enter (from religion, to
sport, over environmental engagement), and for 20 bucks you can buy a ticket for the gym,
which you can use during the whole term. As in all North-American universities, there are
many sport teams, which have many official games. You can buy tickets (if you live on
campus, you’ll often get them for free) and watch them. Though, they are not as popular as in
the movies (except for ice-hockey – it’s Canada after all), it’s still fun to attend and to cheer
for your team.
If you want to get off campus, you can go to the city or to one of the many shopping centers
around. Unfortunately, the transport system is not very great and a little bit expensive.
Therefore you cannot go downtown without changing between busses and trains and you have
to pay around 7 Dollars get there and home again.
To sum up …
I really enjoyed my exchange in Toronto. The York University has great professors and they
really teached me a lot. Although, I would change a few things about my accommodation or
my whole planning system (which did not exist), it was an experience I wouldn’t want to miss
and I also got to know many great people I am still in contact with.
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