Details

• Canada
• MASCM-21
• Graduate
• WS 2025
• Time spent at the partner university: 4 months

1. Preparation

When preparing for your exchange at the U of A, you have to fill out some forms that the coordinator from the business office at U of A sends to you. Then you will have to select your classes and also send them to the coordinators at U of A and they will register you (at least in the masters). You will then have to pay the UAHIP, which is the compulsory health insurance that the university gives you but that is only about 150 CAD and the transportation ticket for the semester which is 180 CAD. Then around April you also have to sign up for the student housing on campus and then in May you can choose your apartment. Your don't ned to get a VISA, only apply for the ETA which is a tourist visa, as you stay in the country less than 6 months, and you are allowed to study with this ETA.

2. Accommodation

It's quite easy to get housing, as you only have to sign up before a certain deadline (I think in March or April) and then you will have guaranteed housing. All exchange students lived on campus, but there are several dorms. I lived in a single studio in HUB, but it's a bit of a weird. In the middle of the long house, there is a Mall, where there is a lot of food stands and some of them smell quite a lot. If you live in the individual apartments you have to take the stairs down in the Mall, so if you choose an apartment which starts with 03 you are on the ground level or even a bit lower (I would not recommend). I was 01 and that was ok. If you choose to live in a shared flat, they will be upstairs of the mall and there is flats of four in floor 3 and flats of two in floor 2. It's a bit of a weird system. Especially when you choose to live in a shared flat, I would highly recommend Nipisy House. It's very new and much much nicer than HUB. There you have a shared kitchen and living room with 4 or 6 people and then you share a bathroom with only one other person, so there is two bathrooms in the apartment. Then there is International House which is also ok, you have an individual room and bathroom, but you have a shared kitchen and some floors are super dirty the kitchen. So overall I would choose Nipisy if I would go back. Its nice to live on Campus because all the exchange students live there.

3. Academic life at host university

The campus infrastructure at U of A is not as new as at WU but the campus is much larger, however the business building is close to all student dorms. The classes you can choose will be sent to you in an excel file, however some courses they offer are for some reason combined with bachelor students, so they offer them for master and bachelor students and you sit together in a class. The classes with only the numbers 600 and upwards are only master students, there you can see on bear tracks. However I also had one bachelor course where I would say it was the best one of all 4 courses. The class sizes are max 30 people and the MBA courses are more engaging. There you will most likely also get graded on your participation. During the semester you will get a loot of assignments, so the workload is actually quite high, especially in October, November and December. However I feel like that the knowledge you gain from the classes and assignments is not as high as at WU. Also the other MBA students are much older, so they are like 30-40 years old and married, as they have all work experience, so in class you will feel really young when you don't have a bachelor course. Also I had a class with Ruin Mao and she is an amazing professor, one of the best I've ever had! However I also had a class by Robb Sombach and a friend had two classes with him and his classes were very chaotic, he talks a lot, but the lectured are not so informative so I would not take him again.

5. Every day life in the host country

You will get an ARC card from the university so you can travel all around Edmonton for the entire semester. The public transport is ok, there are 3 subway lines and busses so you can get around. But as Canada is so huge, they have spread out the city and all the locals take the car, so some locations take ages to get to. Also to go grocery shopping you either need to walk about 15 minutes to Safeway which is quite expensive or take the bus to Save on foods which is a good price (takes 15 minutes bus ride) or train to Walmart that takes 40 minutes. Close to Uni is Whyte Ave, which is the street where you can go out, but this is also the only street where there are some shops (a few) and where is some live. There are a couple bars, where you can go to on Whyte Ave, but overall the nightlife is not the best. Otherwise the city center is dead, there is basically no people walking outdoors as they all take the car. This is quite common for Edmonton that you don't see a lot of people on the streets, as the winters get so cold, they are not so used to go outside, also in summer. In Calgary for example there is a lot more action on the streets. Sadly the only people in Edmonton you will see outside are the homeless and they have a big drug problem, so they are all drugged, which sometimes makes you not feel so safe especially at night. There is not a lot of activities you can actually do in Edmonton, the one things locals like is West Edmonton Mall, which is a big shopping mall, but its again indoors, in the city center there are no shops to go to. The best thing about Edmonton I would probably say are the Rocky Mountains, which are a 4 hour drive, but they are amazing, so we rented a car (you need a physical credit card) and went there on the weekends a lot. One thing the Edmontonians like are the Edmonton Oilers, so you should definitely go to a game, as that's really cool. If I'm totally honest though, there is not a lot to do in the city, that's why they also call it Deadmonton.

6. Testimonial

Overall, my exchange at the University of Alberta was fun, but I have been on other exchanges before (to Australia and Chile) and they were much more exciting. The other exchange students who were with me from WU (in the bachelors) they liked it much more, as they didn't have the comparison as I did. It's still a fun experience and definitely better than not doing an exchange, but I would recommend going somewhere else. I don't want to sound too negative, as it was still a great time and the other exchange students were super fun. Also if you like going to nature, the Rockies are amazing, but then Calgary is much closer to them. So if you want to apply for an exchange I can alsways recommend that, but maybe in a different city than Edmonton.