It was by far the best summer ever! It was such a wonderful opportunity to get to study in a top university in Canada.   People in Victoria were super friendly, when we went out shopping, the cashier person would say “hello” and “how are you today?” The best thing about Victoria is the weather. The air was really fresh and cooling. I absolutely love the weather there. It wasn't too hot and wasn't too cold. Around 25 degrees Celsius. We got to escape the hot weather in Japan.

Our teachers were really nice and fun. We always have interesting games to play in class every day and my classmates were very friendly too. We got along very well. My English class level was kind of hard and sometimes easy. We had to prepare many presentations and do a lot of talking but it was really fun.
 
The program prepared a lot of events for us. We signed up for afternoon workshops, which are afternoon activities to do after classes. There were many kinds like sports, art, and outing trips. I signed up for urban adventures for the first week and conversation workshop for the second week. Urban adventure was really fun because our cultural assistants brought us downtown for an outing in the fishermen’s wharf. We fed seals fishes and get to take many nice pictures of the floating houses. In conversation workshop, we played small games that requires a lot of speaking.  Sometimes we have trips after classes, like going to the Sidney bay and British Columbia museum. You can sign up for weekend activities like going to Vancouver, whale watching, kayaking and going to the Butchart Gardens.

Some culture shock we all experienced in Canada was that shops close really early. When we first arrived we were desperate to look for supermarket and convenience store. The nearest market was a few kilometers away from the campus. It was easy to get back from the places to our campus because there are many buses bound for the university. We had to buy day passes for 5 dollars which was really worth it because we get to take the bus countless times for the whole day.

Before I forget, I was glad that we were assigned to have our own room in the dormitory. I like my own privacy and it was nice there. At night, my friends and I would go for a night stroll around the campus. The campus is really big. I heard that you can see shooting stars in Victoria so we would go out to watch the stars at night. It was really nice and its one of the best moments I spent with my friends.

I am really satisfied and happy that I joined this study abroad program. Even though 3 weeks were really short, I still had a lot of fun and get to see the world. I would want to join the spring study abroad program but I usually go back to my country during spring. Hoping to have a chance again to study abroad. It was a great experience.

– Cheah Shanvey, Tokyo International University

 

• Posted November 14, 2016