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Hello, I am XuRui(허예) and I have exchanged to McGill University during the 2019 Fall semester. McGill, the Harvard of Canada, is a great place to go if you want to experience high-quality undergraduate education, practice English and get help with your career path. Besides, Montreal, in which McGill is located, is a really nice city to live where life is no more intensive such as Asian countries and people there are all friendly and happy. You will love there once you go I believe.
1. 수강신청 및 수업:
After being nominated at KUBS in February, I received an email from McGill Uni containing information about registering McGill as an exchange student in March, which was really early compared to all my friends applying for the exchange program. My application had passed in middle March when I started to prepare materials to enter Canada including Visa(see XX). In May, there were emails from McGill regarding course registration: according to McGill’s rule, everyone will have their own time to register courses on Minerva(portal system of McGill), but I just got 1 course when I registered on Minerva due to prerequisite courses of Management faculty. But you do not need to worry at all because the Bcom office(administration office of Desaultal Management Faculty) will put you in almost every course you wrote on the Word file they sent to you. Regarding adding in/drop courses, as an exchange student, you will have to go to the Bcom office in person and ask the advisors to help you change courses.
I registered 5 courses but I recommend taking 4 if that works since the course in McGill is kind of more intensive than KUBS. And because I did pretty poor in course registration in Korea Uni., I have some 전공필수 courses left, I took many of them during the exchange semester.
(1) Management Accounting ACCT361 Prof: Pruijssers, Jorien
The professor is really nice and friendly, she explained things very clearly with well made Powerpoint slides and took care of every student. There were 3 exams so you always have to study it from time to time and better just review the content after the lecture. There were practice problems for every exam and some problems in the class, if you can go over each of them, you will get a good grade in the exams. The course is worth taking.
(2) Introduction to Organizational Behavior MGCR222 Prof: Jaeger, Alfred M
The professor is nice but the lecture is not that interesting since most of the time he would just read the slides instead of lecturing and ask students to read the textbook at home and do an online test before every class. I heard this course of KUBS also emphasizes a lot on remembering stuff but it would not be so different on the McGill exam if you read all the chapters and do the online assignments he required, you can get a fair grade.
(3) International Business MCGR 382 Prof: Jorgensen, Jan J and Melville, Donald
Professor Jan took charge of the first half of the course until the mid-term exam and handed the class over to Professor Jorgensen. The course is more like an Economic class targeting the first-year students so the most challenging part was just calculating the exchange rate and some related stuff, beyond that, there was much theoretical knowledge regarding international trading and economics. In addition, there were 2 team projects but relatively easy and less time-consuming.
(4) Strategic Management MGCR423 Prof: Vit, Gregory Bryan
The course was the most challenging one since I entered university. Professor Vit is a super clever guy, he does not deliver the lecture as a lecturer but invites students to discuss first based on the reading material he uploaded, usually, it was about 20 to 30 pages reading for every class. He does not refer to the textbook so much because he thinks the models and methods to solve problems in the textbook are kinds of outdated. Therefore he chose many articles and delivered the lecture based on those materials. The term project was to manage to get in touch with the CEO of a really big company to talk about their strategies. Our group finally contacted the CEO of the department store Nordstrom and made a video interview. I learned a lot during doing the project and the class. The important thing of this class is to really understand what a theory is talking about, how it will affect a company in the practice level and how to use what you have learned to solve a problem. I feel this course can be considered as a real university lecture.
(5) Consumer Behavior MRKT452 Prof: Fabienne Cyrius
The professor always tried to make the lecture more interesting so she arranged activities related to the topic of every class. There were 3 group projects with presentations that were okay to deal with. She likes to talk about herself sometimes so my group members and I cannot get the point for some time. There was no mid-term exam so the workload for the final is relatively much. I do not consider I learned a lot in this class instead I got to know that I would not take Marketing as my concentration.
2. 기숙사:
As mentioned in the reviews of exchange students who had been to McGill, the dormitory is expensive but poorly furnished. One of my friends who lived in the dorm paid rent at around 1000$(CAD) and took the metro for about 2 stations to go to school. So it is better to live off-campus. There are some materials related to finding a place off-campus on the McGill website telling some basic knowledge of renting a place in Montreal.
Speaking of accommodation, I used the McGill off-campus facebook group and McGill exchange student Facebook group(requires a valid McGill email address) to find a short lease but there was not a proper one. And I also tried the ‘Kijiji’ website where Canadians trade second-hand stuff and publish rental information. You can also refer to www.hanca.com which is made by Korean immigrants, I saw one previous student had used it. For me, I finally found my room though a Chinese App(蒙城汇) at 750$/month all other fees included, 4 metro stations(Beaudry station) away from school. In addition, the distance between each metro station is really short, you can think it just costs 1 minute to get to the next station, so it only took me about 15 mins to get into the classroom from my place. Based on my experience, it is not always necessary to find a room right beside school because it would be more expensive and the house may be older.
3. 생활 및 기타:
(1) KUBS BUDDY 와 같은 교환학생 도우미 프로그램 존재여부
There is an organization called International Buddy that emailed me and matched me and a McGill student before I went to Canada. Unfortunately, they do not offer many interesting meetings as KUBS BUDDY, I only went to 1 meeting and my buddy and I were not close that much.
However, there were a bunch of opportunities to meet other people even before the semester. Started on Aug 26th, there were off-campus connections, Discover McGill, lectures to help increase academic performance and then Frosh of each faculty began, lasting for 4 days. Frosh is a huge activity where you can meet all freshmen and exchange student aiming to drink and go to clubs. If you are into it, never miss this!
(2) 파견 국가의 교우회
There is not any 교우회 at McGill.
(3) 물가
The prices in Montreal are slightly higher than in Korea. Housing is more expensive and the food price is high due to 15% tax and 15% tips. So it is better to cook yourself if you have a limited budget since the vegetables and fruits are cheap in markets, and sometimes you can find they are even cheaper than Korean ones. As for transportation, you can buy a student OPUS card, which allows you to take buses and metro at a discounted price, CAD$204 for 4 months, with unlimited times. If you like shopping, always check special events of stores or malls during holidays such as Thanksgiving, BlackFriday and Christmas Which will save you a lot of money. They will have discounts basically at 30% and if you go to Outlets hopefully by car you will see 70% or more discounts in many stores.
(4) 파견교 장학금 혜택
I have not heard about Scholarships in McGill.
4. 출국 전 준비사항
As I mentioned before, a visa is required to enter Canada. I guess for Koreans, you just need to apply for an e-visa which can be done online which does not cause much time. I am Chinese, so I applied for a visa pasted on my passport. As for clothes, I packed little summer clothes because August and the beginning of September are still hot. And when it comes to October, the winter comes as well, so it is better to bring some sweaters and leggings. I suggest not to bring down jacket as its volume is big and you can find a warm one such as Canada Goose, Moose and Mackage at a much lower price than those of Asia. You could also prepare scarfs, beanie and gloves, but you can buy them in Montreal where there are tons of winter wear. You will need booths for snowing days, I bought boots at a discount price 20$ and just threw them away before I left. I bought my quilt, pillow and bath towel at IKEA, about 40$ in total. You could bring those things if you have enough room for them.
5. 보험 및 비자
McGill requires all international students to purchase the international students’ insurance of McGill at $378 for 1 semester. The insurance does not include the dental cost, but you can get the partial refund of your medicine payment using a specific application which you will be informed after paying for the insurance. As for Korean, you can apply for eTA(전자여행허가)which will not cause so long at Government of Canada(https://www.canada.ca/en/services/immigration-citizenship.html).In addition, CAQ is not required for those who stay for less than 6 months regardless of the nationalities of applicates. Chinese passport holders have to apply for a paper visa which needs a lot more materials, but you can Baidu it, there are lots of discussions regarding how to apply for a student visa for less than 6 months.
6. 파견교 소개
There are already tons of descriptions about McGill, so I would like to talk about the feelings and life in McGill.First of all, the people in McGill are all friendly and very nice. Since Montreal is an immigrate city, with no much Chinese or Korean as Vancouver has, it is open to other cultures so you will be easier to get close to other cultural groups such as Canadian, French and the US. Secondly, you can survive without speaking French. Some people may talk in French even in school (only after class), but if you talk to them in English, they will all happy to change into English for you. Thirdly, LOTS of student clubs available. McGill has many student clubs including almost every field, it is a good idea to join at least one. McGill students study hard and play hard. (I recommend McGill Outdoor club).Furthermore, Montreal located very close to New York, so for those who can visit the US without a visa, it is a good choice to travel to New York during weekends with club members or people in FB exchange student groups. You can also visit Ottawa, Tronto, Nigra Falls, and Vancouver if you have time.
1. 수강신청 및 수업:
After being nominated at KUBS in February, I received an email from McGill Uni containing information about registering McGill as an exchange student in March, which was really early compared to all my friends applying for the exchange program. My application had passed in middle March when I started to prepare materials to enter Canada including Visa(see XX). In May, there were emails from McGill regarding course registration: according to McGill’s rule, everyone will have their own time to register courses on Minerva(portal system of McGill), but I just got 1 course when I registered on Minerva due to prerequisite courses of Management faculty. But you do not need to worry at all because the Bcom office(administration office of Desaultal Management Faculty) will put you in almost every course you wrote on the Word file they sent to you. Regarding adding in/drop courses, as an exchange student, you will have to go to the Bcom office in person and ask the advisors to help you change courses.
I registered 5 courses but I recommend taking 4 if that works since the course in McGill is kind of more intensive than KUBS. And because I did pretty poor in course registration in Korea Uni., I have some 전공필수 courses left, I took many of them during the exchange semester.
(1) Management Accounting ACCT361 Prof: Pruijssers, Jorien
The professor is really nice and friendly, she explained things very clearly with well made Powerpoint slides and took care of every student. There were 3 exams so you always have to study it from time to time and better just review the content after the lecture. There were practice problems for every exam and some problems in the class, if you can go over each of them, you will get a good grade in the exams. The course is worth taking.
(2) Introduction to Organizational Behavior MGCR222 Prof: Jaeger, Alfred M
The professor is nice but the lecture is not that interesting since most of the time he would just read the slides instead of lecturing and ask students to read the textbook at home and do an online test before every class. I heard this course of KUBS also emphasizes a lot on remembering stuff but it would not be so different on the McGill exam if you read all the chapters and do the online assignments he required, you can get a fair grade.
(3) International Business MCGR 382 Prof: Jorgensen, Jan J and Melville, Donald
Professor Jan took charge of the first half of the course until the mid-term exam and handed the class over to Professor Jorgensen. The course is more like an Economic class targeting the first-year students so the most challenging part was just calculating the exchange rate and some related stuff, beyond that, there was much theoretical knowledge regarding international trading and economics. In addition, there were 2 team projects but relatively easy and less time-consuming.
(4) Strategic Management MGCR423 Prof: Vit, Gregory Bryan
The course was the most challenging one since I entered university. Professor Vit is a super clever guy, he does not deliver the lecture as a lecturer but invites students to discuss first based on the reading material he uploaded, usually, it was about 20 to 30 pages reading for every class. He does not refer to the textbook so much because he thinks the models and methods to solve problems in the textbook are kinds of outdated. Therefore he chose many articles and delivered the lecture based on those materials. The term project was to manage to get in touch with the CEO of a really big company to talk about their strategies. Our group finally contacted the CEO of the department store Nordstrom and made a video interview. I learned a lot during doing the project and the class. The important thing of this class is to really understand what a theory is talking about, how it will affect a company in the practice level and how to use what you have learned to solve a problem. I feel this course can be considered as a real university lecture.
(5) Consumer Behavior MRKT452 Prof: Fabienne Cyrius
The professor always tried to make the lecture more interesting so she arranged activities related to the topic of every class. There were 3 group projects with presentations that were okay to deal with. She likes to talk about herself sometimes so my group members and I cannot get the point for some time. There was no mid-term exam so the workload for the final is relatively much. I do not consider I learned a lot in this class instead I got to know that I would not take Marketing as my concentration.
2. 기숙사:
As mentioned in the reviews of exchange students who had been to McGill, the dormitory is expensive but poorly furnished. One of my friends who lived in the dorm paid rent at around 1000$(CAD) and took the metro for about 2 stations to go to school. So it is better to live off-campus. There are some materials related to finding a place off-campus on the McGill website telling some basic knowledge of renting a place in Montreal.
Speaking of accommodation, I used the McGill off-campus facebook group and McGill exchange student Facebook group(requires a valid McGill email address) to find a short lease but there was not a proper one. And I also tried the ‘Kijiji’ website where Canadians trade second-hand stuff and publish rental information. You can also refer to www.hanca.com which is made by Korean immigrants, I saw one previous student had used it. For me, I finally found my room though a Chinese App(蒙城汇) at 750$/month all other fees included, 4 metro stations(Beaudry station) away from school. In addition, the distance between each metro station is really short, you can think it just costs 1 minute to get to the next station, so it only took me about 15 mins to get into the classroom from my place. Based on my experience, it is not always necessary to find a room right beside school because it would be more expensive and the house may be older.
3. 생활 및 기타:
(1) KUBS BUDDY 와 같은 교환학생 도우미 프로그램 존재여부
There is an organization called International Buddy that emailed me and matched me and a McGill student before I went to Canada. Unfortunately, they do not offer many interesting meetings as KUBS BUDDY, I only went to 1 meeting and my buddy and I were not close that much.
However, there were a bunch of opportunities to meet other people even before the semester. Started on Aug 26th, there were off-campus connections, Discover McGill, lectures to help increase academic performance and then Frosh of each faculty began, lasting for 4 days. Frosh is a huge activity where you can meet all freshmen and exchange student aiming to drink and go to clubs. If you are into it, never miss this!
(2) 파견 국가의 교우회
There is not any 교우회 at McGill.
(3) 물가
The prices in Montreal are slightly higher than in Korea. Housing is more expensive and the food price is high due to 15% tax and 15% tips. So it is better to cook yourself if you have a limited budget since the vegetables and fruits are cheap in markets, and sometimes you can find they are even cheaper than Korean ones. As for transportation, you can buy a student OPUS card, which allows you to take buses and metro at a discounted price, CAD$204 for 4 months, with unlimited times. If you like shopping, always check special events of stores or malls during holidays such as Thanksgiving, BlackFriday and Christmas Which will save you a lot of money. They will have discounts basically at 30% and if you go to Outlets hopefully by car you will see 70% or more discounts in many stores.
(4) 파견교 장학금 혜택
I have not heard about Scholarships in McGill.
4. 출국 전 준비사항
As I mentioned before, a visa is required to enter Canada. I guess for Koreans, you just need to apply for an e-visa which can be done online which does not cause much time. I am Chinese, so I applied for a visa pasted on my passport. As for clothes, I packed little summer clothes because August and the beginning of September are still hot. And when it comes to October, the winter comes as well, so it is better to bring some sweaters and leggings. I suggest not to bring down jacket as its volume is big and you can find a warm one such as Canada Goose, Moose and Mackage at a much lower price than those of Asia. You could also prepare scarfs, beanie and gloves, but you can buy them in Montreal where there are tons of winter wear. You will need booths for snowing days, I bought boots at a discount price 20$ and just threw them away before I left. I bought my quilt, pillow and bath towel at IKEA, about 40$ in total. You could bring those things if you have enough room for them.
5. 보험 및 비자
McGill requires all international students to purchase the international students’ insurance of McGill at $378 for 1 semester. The insurance does not include the dental cost, but you can get the partial refund of your medicine payment using a specific application which you will be informed after paying for the insurance. As for Korean, you can apply for eTA(전자여행허가)which will not cause so long at Government of Canada(https://www.canada.ca/en/services/immigration-citizenship.html).In addition, CAQ is not required for those who stay for less than 6 months regardless of the nationalities of applicates. Chinese passport holders have to apply for a paper visa which needs a lot more materials, but you can Baidu it, there are lots of discussions regarding how to apply for a student visa for less than 6 months.
6. 파견교 소개
There are already tons of descriptions about McGill, so I would like to talk about the feelings and life in McGill.First of all, the people in McGill are all friendly and very nice. Since Montreal is an immigrate city, with no much Chinese or Korean as Vancouver has, it is open to other cultures so you will be easier to get close to other cultural groups such as Canadian, French and the US. Secondly, you can survive without speaking French. Some people may talk in French even in school (only after class), but if you talk to them in English, they will all happy to change into English for you. Thirdly, LOTS of student clubs available. McGill has many student clubs including almost every field, it is a good idea to join at least one. McGill students study hard and play hard. (I recommend McGill Outdoor club).Furthermore, Montreal located very close to New York, so for those who can visit the US without a visa, it is a good choice to travel to New York during weekends with club members or people in FB exchange student groups. You can also visit Ottawa, Tronto, Nigra Falls, and Vancouver if you have time.
