I arrived in Memorial University (Mun) two weeks ago!

Mun is an aged university since it has been created in 1925, in memory of the dead soldiers during First World War.

 It’s a big campus with many facilities. Here is the website where you can see the campus in more details: http://virtual-tour.mun.ca/

Mun is located in St John’s, Newfoundland (NL): NL is an island located in the east of Canada. It belongs to the province: Newfoundland and Labrador. Historically, it was a region where French and Irish people were fishing. So, there are still French and Irish cultures here. For instance, George’s street is full of Irish pubs! It’s the most easterly place of North America and St John’s is one of the most colorful cities. But, to one of my teacher’s mind; Canadians often think that NL is a non-attractive region which is known for its bad weather. That’s why Newfoundland government launched a big marketing campaign which highlights the beauty of this region, in order to increase tourism receipts. Here is one of their videos: 

I arrived there at midnight, January 10^th. I had asked for a pick up, so Shiva (a volunteer girl) was waiting for me at the airport. We took a cab which brings us at a special office in which we can have our keys outside the regular hours.

Shiva brought me to my apartment. In the living room, I found Théophile, an Esdes student which arrived the same day as me but didn’t have his flat’s keys. He told me that it was the apartment of Cecile; my roommate in Lyon! Even if Cecile and I asked not to be with French speakers: we have been put together! So, living on campus doesn’t necessarily mean “living with Canadians”. If you really want to live with English speakers: you can do a colocation off-campus. You can find it in France on: “kijiji.ca”, or in the mun website in the tab: housing/off-campus

I choose Burton Pond’s apartments because Platon college was more a boarding school and New residence was more expansive than Burton Pond’s for, as for me, a less convenient accommodation such as common bathroom. Nevertheless, Burtons Ponds apartments are older than the other ones so, if you want a renovated flat, ask to be in “Cabot”. 

I was surprised by the numerous actions memorial university did for us: we received a “swag bag” with prospectus and a memorial T-shirt, a folder with very important and practical informations at the International Students Administration (ISA), met our mentor teacher Victoria Greey who spent one hour with us explaining the rules here, some aspect of the Canadian culture and listing all the services we could use! I listed some of them: the writing center is a place where we can ask English speakers to correct our papers, ISA is the office which organizes events for international students, and she even spoke about a place we could go if we feel homesick!

For the moment, we spoke mostly with the international students because we met them during events. Canadians leave the class quickly and already have their personal life so it’s less easy to speak to them. Moreover, many students, even if they study at memorial since several years, come from many countries. So, last Saturday, we went at a party with: Mexicans, Chilean, Czech, French, Japanese, Korean, Indian, Bangladeshis, Indonesian and Canadian. We had a very good time and it was very pleasant to speak with people from so many horizons! Above all: don’t forget to register at the mentor program! One student will be your mentor, so you will meet him as much as you want and you will be able to participate at “Mun mentor events” which are good opportunities to meet new students! It’s mostly there we met our friends!

Here are all lessons I took:

- Consumer behavior: It’s definitively the course I prefer here. I recommend you to take it because the teacher speaks very clearly, is dynamic and make humor. So, I perfectly understand her lesson.

- Marketing research: the teacher speaks faster so it’s more difficult to understand her. But after some sessions, I adapted myself to her way of speaking. So now: I have fewer problems and find her course very interesting: it has a strong link with consumer behavior.

- Intro to Entrepreneurship: I was disappointed by this course so I changed it. To date, I only had my new course one time so I can’t talk about my impression except saying that we will have many guests, which is a very good point!

- NL, society and culture: As for entrepreneurship, I changed it because, in my first course, we had to speak about NL culture in groups. So, I was with Newfoundlanders speaking and debating about their culture whereas I didn’t know anything about since I was here, precisely, to learn it! So I took another course but it seems more difficult: we will read books about NL culture and critic it studying writer’s life.

- Zen, Buddhist meditation and Buddhist psychology: it’s a really interesting course! I recommend you to take at least one course different from business because it’s maybe the first and last time you can choose what you want! Just notice: business students don’t have class on Friday so taking another course is a risk to have lesson this day: like me. The teacher speaks about the history of Buddhism, the evolution, the practices…, and, as in the other course, we will do analysis on books.

Lessons have some common points with French courses: teachers speak with a power point downloadable on memorial@home which is the equivalent of claroline.

But there are many differences: students don’t have many lessons: five courses is the maximum we can take here. But they have a huge personal work: we have to read books before each lessons. Let’s speak about textbooks! You will need at least one per course: you can find most of them at the library or its website but you will need to buy the rest and they are more expansive than in France: 150$ is a common price for ONE. So you will need good deals! There are two Facebook groups: “mun used text book sale” and “Sell your MUN text books!” You can also find them on memorial website. If not, amazon.ca can be a good deal but be careful of the delivery time, because we will need them quickly! Indeed: we don’t have final exam in some courses so we have 2 or 3 mid-term exams and first ones are two weeks after the beginning of the class!

In class, students don’t speak between them but participate a lot! They don’t hesitate to raise the hand (or not) to give their personal opinion on what the teacher said. They debate a bit and then the course goes on. We don’t work in group as much as in France. Sometimes, teacher says us to do little groups of three to speaks fifteen minutes on a subjects but that’s all (for the moment).

As for me, Canadians are influenced by the United States concerning some subjects. For instance, sport took an important place! So going to memorial is a good way to try new sports! Indeed, we have the field house and the aquarena:http://www.theworksonline.ca/

In the field house: a huge racetrack surrounds an area where you can do table tennis, tennis and fitness courses. On the first floor, there are many cardio machines such as bicycles… All is free! Except the aquarena but we have great discount! The sea hawks is the mun’s basketball clubs and, according to a friend, matches are really exciting: they take place in the house field, crowded for the event, and even if the public is really implicated in the match; there’s a strong respect of the opponent.

Sources: http://funtastique.fr/les-villes-les-plus-colorees-du-monde/