{"id":200,"date":"2015-08-13T16:08:52","date_gmt":"2015-08-13T16:08:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/studyabroad\/?p=200"},"modified":"2016-01-25T16:15:42","modified_gmt":"2016-01-25T16:15:42","slug":"the-101-survival-guide-of-being-an-exchange-student-part-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/studyabroad\/2015\/08\/13\/the-101-survival-guide-of-being-an-exchange-student-part-2\/","title":{"rendered":"The 101 survival guide of being an exchange student – part 2"},"content":{"rendered":"

So a little about the logistics! When it came to selecting my host university I only wanted to attend a Canadian university, all the US universities were crossed straight off my list, not because I dislike the US but because I\u2019m a true Canadian at heart, get me some skis, a pint of Molsons Canadian and I\u2019ll happily get up to some Canadian mischief!<\/p>\n

I set about ranking the Canadian universities with exchange student places and was eventually told that I had a conditional place at the University of Calgary. So it was decided, I was going to Cowboy Country! In your first year at Lancaster you\u2019ve got to get a minimum of a 2:1 to be able to study abroad. Getting an email confirming my first year results was the best feeling, especially as I was in Belin at the time.<\/p>\n

Before I went away the prospect of taking 9 months worth of stuff in a single suitcase (I didn\u2019t want to pay extra for another one because I\u2019m tight), being away from my Mum and my friends as well as being in a \u2018foreign\u2019 country seemed very daunting. However, as soon as I started my journey to Calgary I couldn\u2019t sit still, I was so excited I just wanted to get there. I found myself settling in straight away. I honestly had the best time of my life, so I\u2019ve created a 101 survival guide on studying abroad so you can make the most of every opportunity like I did and things that I learned from my experience.<\/p>\n

1) Attend all the events during O-week<\/strong>. O-week is our equivalent to Freshers\u2019 Week. Here you\u2019ll meet many freshers but you\u2019re guaranteed to meet many other study abroad students just like yourself. You\u2019ll find that the people that you meet in your first week will be your friends for life. Now I\u2019ve got contacts all of the world, I have places to stay not just in Canada but in the Netherlands, France, Germany, Italy, Sweden, the list goes on. It\u2019s often these other exchange students that\u2019ll want to do all of the touristy stuff with you such as go up the Calgary Tower that Canadian\u2019s have probably done 1,000x before and find boring.<\/p>\n

\"Laura<\/a><\/p>\n

2) Get in with the locals.<\/strong> Whilst I was in Canada they had two Thanksgiving dinners. I had nowhere to go, it wasn\u2019t like I could fly home for an extravagant Sunday dinner. So I resorted to making friends with Canadians. It wasn\u2019t difficult at all, I just spoke to people in my classes and I soon had a whole group of Canadian friends. Honestly they were so hospitable and warm, my friend\u2019s Mum invited me around on numerous occasions when she\u2019d made too much dinner!\u00a0 What? I know that I should like a vulture but I\u2019m a student that normally lives off baked beans after all!<\/p>\n

\"Laura's<\/a><\/p>\n

Please see ‘The 101 survival guide of being an exchange student – part 3’ to find out the other must-do’s!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So a little about the logistics! When it came to selecting my host university I only wanted to attend a Canadian university, all the US universities were crossed straight off my list, not because I dislike the US but because I\u2019m a true Canadian at heart, get me some skis, a pint of Molsons Canadian […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":431,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[35],"tags":[65,89,91,90],"class_list":["post-200","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-canada-calgary","tag-must-dos","tag-orientation","tag-study-abroad-students","tag-thanksgiving"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6SVJb-3e","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/studyabroad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/studyabroad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/studyabroad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/studyabroad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/431"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/studyabroad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=200"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/studyabroad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":280,"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/studyabroad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200\/revisions\/280"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/studyabroad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=200"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/studyabroad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=200"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/studyabroad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=200"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}