Queens University Semester 1, 2016 Commerce Finance and Accounting

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1 Queens University Semester 1, 2016 Commerce Finance and Accounting Accommodation I was at Queens during their winter semester but we had a very mild winter, most student houses are not like Dunedin and are very warm and well insulated. I found m y house on housing anywhere and searched for Kingston which was really easy to navigate and pick where you want to live and what price. I really had the best semester ever and got 3 awesome Canadians and one other exchange student from Belgium who also let off another Canadian. I was on Albert Street which was a 2 minute walk from university/goodes Hall (commerce building) and 5 minutes from the Gym and Main libraries! I would definitely recommend skyping your future housemates before signing with them! Money Matters My rent was $550 a month for four month contracts as I was subletting this was handy so I didn t have to pay for any extra months. Internet was $180 for the whole time. Food was around the same as New Zealand, some things like cheese (I love cheese) was

2 very expensive and not as good as NZ but other things like fruit and vege don t have any tax. Everything doesn t include tax which is 15% and tipping (which is compulsory pretty much) is anywhere from 10% - 20% depending on how you liked the service, if you haven t tipped before this is how people in the service industry make their money compared to NZ where the wages are higher. Academics/course load Academics for commerce is VERY different compared to Otago University depending on your course. I took COMM323, COMM324, and COMM311/313 (kind of the same course). COMM323 is Corporate Financial Planning with William Cannon (a very well known professor, if you are taking finance I would definitely recommend, it does have the highest fail and drop out rate but I honestly learnt so much), COMM324 is a lot of work but not too hard, and COMM311 is accounting and quite easy! I took one of the hardest course loads for an exchange student so keep this in mind if you take finance/accounting. The Smith s School of Business is very prestigious in Canada/The World which I didn t know too much about before.

3 Transportation Very much like Dunedin, you don t need a car, unless you re going to do a road trip somewhere where you need to be above 21 pretty much everywhere to rent a car! With your student ID you have a free bus pass just show it when you get on which is really handy to get to the Loblaws (supermarket like New World) which is only 5 mins bus ride away from university. Using the university Tricolour Bus, Greyhound or Megabus to get to places like Toronto, New York, Montreal, Ottawa is easy and not too expensive which is really handy for weekend trips and leaves from university or a $5 cab ride away. Weather I was in Kingston from Jan April which was pretty cold coming from NZ, Kingston doesn t seemed to rain too much but we had a really mild winter, with not that much snow compared to last year. In the winter it could be around -30 degrees for weeks, but mostly floats around 0 to -20 around Feb/March. All I brought was a good winter parka (you want one that goes down to your thighs) like North Face or Canada Goose and you definitely want it to be waterproof. You might get told to buy snow boots but to be honest you ll only use them a handful of times unless you get a lot of snow, so just good boots like Timberland s or I brought Roots (Canadian brand) should be fine! Eating On campus there are heaps of stores including Pita Pit, Tim Hortons, Pizza places, the Pub, Common Ground (recommend), and more stores in the J-Duc. There is also two common supermarkets which are Loblaws and the closer to university. Everything is relatively close to campus and its very much like Dunedin!

4 Things to do Around Kingston: The waterfront has beautiful sunsets on Lake Ontario, in winter you can walk on the lake. There is Rock Dunder a 30minute drive (rented a car) which is a nice walk (not really a hike) around 1 30mins which has some cabins and a nice view of a lake. Places to visit Ontario/Quebec: Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal are all around 2-4hours away by bus which is really handy and I recommend doing them all for one weekend each (or more)! A lot of trips are organized by the Exchange group (especially commerce) and there is also the Ski Club which goes to America for example New York State or Vermont for ski trip weekends! Niagara Falls on the Lake is also about 1 hour from Toronto which is another easy bus ride there. We used Air BnB and hostels for all our trips and they worked really well. America/Canada: Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia (Cape Breton is a must if you go here), New York. These are all places I travelled to either in Reading week (only in winter) or once exams were finished. All not too far and really cool places to go since your up in North America.

5 Tips for future students Keep in mind they do not have a reading break in summer which is our version of a Mid semester break. Don t buy too much before coming they have everything in Kingston even urban outfitters and Sephora.