My Year Abroad in Québec, Canada

Bonjour everyone! My name is Neha and I study Politics and French at the University of Southampton. This year I had the pleasure of doing my 3rd year abroad in Québec City in Canada at Université Laval. I took their French courses while I was there to hone in on my French linguistic skills. In this post, I aim to share my experience living in North America and what you can expect if you choose to do this placement too!

Let’s get started. 

MY EXPECTATIONS:

To be completely honest, I was so nervous going into this year abroad. It was my first time going to Canada before so I had no idea what living there would be like. I also didn’t know much about Québécois culture. The only thing I was aware about was their strong accent so I hoped to learn a lot when I arrived. I was also the first person at Southampton to ever come to Université Laval so I had no one to look to when finding advice or learning from previous experiences. It definitely scared me.

In terms of personal growth, I wasn’t sure how this experience was going to affect me. I had been abroad before to volunteer but never for a whole year. Truthfully, I hate being outside of my comfort zone and I feared the day I was due to fly to Québec. However, once I landed, I was excited to start anew in a different country. I wanted to expand my horizons and learn to live outside of my comfort zone (in which I did!).

I arrived a week before classes were due to start so I kicked off my year abroad with exploring my surroundings, quickly discovering that there were supermarkets nearby and also 3 amazing malls on the main road. I then learnt my bus routes and visited the campus to explore my new university. When I got to campus, it was huge! There were so many buildings to get through at Laval but the true star of the show was their sports facilities. It’s well-known that sports are big in not just Canada, but the whole of North America too but I never realised how much passion they truly had for it. After seeing the huge football stadium there (as shown in the picture above), I made sure to attend at least one football game (I highly recommend it if you come here, it looks just like the movies!).

I knew from that point that I had so many exciting things to look forward to living here and all my nerves simply disappeared!

MEETING PEOPLE AND FINDING MY WAY:

If you’re worried about making friends here, honestly don’t! The support that Laval give international students is top-tier. When I first arrived, I was worried about befriending people too but I soon realised the resources I had access to. Firstly, they have a department called ‘FLS’ which is there to support the integration for students who have come from abroad. They organise bi-weekly excursions to help you meet people and also learn about Québec and explore it. The first excursion I did was a tour of Old Québec (as pictured above) and there I met my first friends who I’d spend the 2 semesters with (we even did a girls trip to Montréal!). Everyone was so welcoming and there were good vibes all around. Through my friends I met at the tour, I began to meet new people, network and I ended up finding even more friends to spend the year with. There were also so many activities that we did such as painting ceramics, clubbing nights, pool parties and all you can eat sushi nights! FLS was truly the backbone of how I found my social circle here. 

Secondly, Laval has many student organisations and clubs to join! I particularly wanted to join one because while I made friends in FLS who were amazing, not all of them could speak French so I needed to find people I could speak with in my target language. So, I joined the sorority at Laval. Everyone there spoke French and I met so many different people from different backgrounds. Some were from France, some from Ivory Coast and even some from Madagascar! I went to rush week, participated in Sorority-led events and even had to complete 23 tasks to go from a pledge to an official member. One of my favourite tasks was the biggest one. We had to spend 24 hours together and so all pledges had a huge sleepover at one of the pledge’s houses! We did shopping trips, played guessing games and made homemade pizza and ice cream together. It was so much fun!

Quebec City is truly filled with so much diversity. Thanks to my time here, I have friends from all over the world. It’s completely normal to be worried about integrating and finding your people, but you will and once you do, it’ll completely elevate your experience.

SKILLS:

My year abroad taught me immeasurably valuable skills such as: discipline, consistency and resilience. It’s never easy to move to a new country, especially one where the language spoken isn’t your primary one. Before I arrived in Canada, I wholeheartedly believed I wouldn’t change that much at all. However, I can confidently say that I am not the same person who landed in Québec back in August. The old me would’ve had an anxiety attack at the thought of leaving the UK or would’ve struggled to stay consistent at something as simple as going to the gym. If you had told me that I would’ve managed to spend 11 months away from everything I ever knew, travel to Montréal and obtain two ‘attestations d’inscriptions’ while here, I simply would not have believed you.

This past year I’ve had so much time to self-reflect and to improve, not only my French linguistics, but my character. I’ve been able to develop myself in ways that would’ve felt so far out of reach for the version of me that first arrived here. This has truly been something that has inspired me to be more driven, push harder towards my newfound goals and reach my full potential in academics and the outside world. Being able to grow in Quebec City has been one of my biggest privileges yet and I am eternally grateful for the opportunity. If you’re considering coming here, I couldn’t recommend it enough; Canada has treated me so well.

FINAL ADVICE:

The best piece of advice I can offer is to trust the process. It will feel hard at times and you will want to give up, but the key is to be consistent. If you know this is something you want to do, then stick with it. I was terrified to come to Canada but I decided to keep going and it rewarded me in ways I never could’ve imagined.

The idea isn’t to show up being perfect, it’s to be open to learning and growing. You don’t need to have it all figured out before you arrive, as long you show up and continue to commit to the process, you’ll be completely fine. You may also feel alone but you’re not. Laval provided me with the foundations to build a life here and you will be able to do the same too!

It’s safe to say I’ve loved every second of my year abroad in Canada and like I said previously, I can’t advocate for it enough. If you want to come here, you won’t regret it!

Thank you for reading my blog and I hope you enjoyed it!

Lots of love from Canada,

Neha <3