Details

• Canada
• BaWiSo-23
• Undergraduate
• SoSe 2026
• Time spent at the partner university: 4 months
• Contact: Login to see contact information

1. Preparation

To prepare you definetly need the eTA for the entry in Canada. You can apply online and usually you receive it within one day. Except for booking my flight I didn't do a lot to prepare,just some medical check-ups, however nothing special. Make sure you have an adaptar for electricity plug-ins, because they have different ones. You can always buy them there in stores or at the airport. I also applied for the mobility grant, which is very easy and fast.

2. Accommodation

My accommodation was on campus and I would totally recommend that, because everyone will be there and you have short distances to your classes and dining. I never even researched for accommodation off-campus, because Vancouver is known to be very expensive when it comes to housing. On the SFU website you can find the housing opportunities and apply there. I was staying in the twonhouses with three canadian girls. I was very lucky to have such nice roommates! They took me everywhere and showed me a lot of things which I wouldn't have seen otherwise I guess. However you can get very unlucky with your roommates, which happend to a friend, but luckily she could switch to a different housing type. In the townhouses two people share one bathroom which is very fine compared to all the other housing types where there are generally shared bathrooms on each floor. In this housing category the mealplan is not mendatory, however I still added it, because it was very practical and also to live with 3 other people, the ktichen was not always clean. The mealplan cost me about 2000€ for the whole exchange, so that was about 500€ per month. It seems like a lot but you have to consider, that no more food or drinks need to be bought. You have everything there 24 hours a day, that was amazing, even though it was not always healthy. However you can still pick healthy options. The townhouses are the furthest away from classes and dining, however it is not really far. It is on campus and therefore very safe. You will see racoons running around but they wont harm you. In terms of bears you should be careful, especially at night because the sometimes walk around campus as well.

3. Academic life at host university

The campus is a lot bigger than WU I think but also not as modern. They have a very different standard but that is fine. The teaching style is mostly very personal, more personal than in Vienna I would say. I can totally recommend the courses I took: Bussiness in a sostainable society (very easy, not a lot of effort) Behaviour in Organisations (not too hard, a lot of packed slides) Introduction to Human Ressource Management (almost no effort and not too much to study for exams) Consumer Behaviour (Very interesting, however more to study and more assignments) All in all I had a lot of group assignments in every course, but they worked out pretty well always.

5. Every day life in the host country

You can buy a compas card in every grocory store for about 4EUR and reload it every month for free. With this card you can use public transport for free in all over Vancouver. All universities provide that service and it is really nice, because you will be going to Vancouver downtown sometimes and therfore it is very practical. Public transport is not as good as it is in Vienna, but compared to North America it is very good. They have a lot of busses that take you almost everywhere. However this could sometimes take a while or be a little loud. The skytrain is very modern and comparable to the subway. Generally Vancouver is very safe in my opinion and the people are very polite and friendly. For activites there are a lot of outdoor sportsactivites, such as hiking or skiining. Also exploring downtown always offers exciting new experiences.

6. Testimonial

What made my exchange special were the people I met and the person I have become. You learn so much about yourself and other cultures, which you may not recognize during your stay, but definetly afterwards. Moreover the trips we made to Banff, New York, Miami and Hawaii were incredible. Also the day to day activities e.g. studying together or going to the mall really sticked to my mind.