Having arrived in Canada with my friend Ellie who also attends Southampton University, we were met with a nightmare of disorganisation that resulted in us both sitting outside our dorm entrance hysterically crying and laughing. Our jet lag would stay with us for 3 days and involved waking in the early hours of the morning and drinking cups of tea to comfort ourselves. Since arriving in Ottawa tea has certainly been at the forefront of our identities, with complaining about weather and awkwardness taking a close second and third. Unfortunately for us the weather was legitimately a point of issue as when we arrived Ottawa was struck with a heat wave lasting a month. With highs of 30 degrees our lovingly packed jumpers were redundant and I was forced to resort to alternating two panic bought T-Shirt dresses for the entirety of the period. Lectures were initially disheartening as I had opted for 2nd and 3rd year courses, without considering the fact that everyone would already have their friendship groups. Despite this I managed to make some Canadian and also international friends outside of lectures who then happened to be on my courses, meaning I was not destined to sit alone for the whole semester.
Making friends proved easier than I could have imagined as everyone was eager to get to know each other in the internationals introductory talk. Some people grouped together in their universities, which I had heard happened from a alumni talk at Southampton and was portrayed in a negative light due to cliquishness. However I didn’t experience this, in fact it proved to be a good thing as usually by meeting one person from a new university you were then automatically guaranteed new friends through them. Ellie and I had decided to live together in university accommodation on campus, which I believe was the best decision we could have made. We explored the city with our two lovely French flatmates Carla and Loulia and also met plenty of other internationals in our building. This proved extremely important to happiness as it makes such a difference having people around you who understand your culture. I’m also extremely happy to have Ellie with me! We are very fortunate that we get on so well, and it made making friends and settling in so much easier when we had each other to fall back on. We are also each others best support systems out here because we’ve seen each other at our worst! I would say, however, that the university itself did little to help initiate friendships within the international community. There was only one event held for us and this was about a 3 weeks into the term which seemed a little late as people by that point had formed friendships on their own. This was also true more broadly when it came to information about moving in and culture within the university.
The workload itself proved to be much more intense than I could have imagined. Despite this supposedly being a more relaxed year in terms of grading, the contact hours went from around 5 a week last year in Southampton to around 16 hours here in Canada. I also took on a large number of extra curricular activities including two choirs, a couple of church meetings and soccer (our football). This meant that as soon as all the deadlines started coming through I found it extremely difficult to balance everything or even to coast. This was combined with a arguably questionable decision to go back to England three weeks into the term to make a family occasion I was told I couldn’t miss. The jet lag and consequent catch up work was a lot to handle and resulted in a few breakdowns! One thing I have really enjoyed about the Canadian education system is that we’re able to take different classes, not just focused on our degree title in England. Therefore I’ve been able to take a minor in Music, which has allowed me to receive singing lessons and get credit from choir attendance and masterclasses. During my school years a lot of my life was focused around Music (at one point I planned to pursue a career in it) so having the opportunity to immerse myself in it a little whilst receiving credit has been great! It’s also given me a new set of Canadian friends   I would never have met had I not tried out for the singing. It’s definitely been important to maintain a few different friendship groups. I’ve really enjoyed having a number of different international friendship groups, but also having local friends too that are separate. Being away from England has in some way forced me to be less dependant on my family and my long term friends, partially due to time difference. Therefore the people you surround yourself is a very important factor in enjoying your time abroad.
Settling in was a very exhausting process however once I’d established myself practically as well as with friendships it’s been really easy to enjoy the process. Nevertheless the initial few weeks were extremely different to the following months, once the novelty of being in a new country (and having an extremely popular accent) had worn off.