If you’ve read last week’s post about why you should go on exchange, you’ll know that overall I loved my time in Canada! But there are certainly plenty of difficult things about exchange. As much as they sucked at the time, it’s these moments that really help you to grow and change. Really at the core of things that’s is what exchange is all about, right?
No doubt if you’re thinking of going on exchange, or you’re getting close to heading off* you’re probably wondering about the bad stuff. Below, I’ve written about a few of the not-so-great things that happened to me on my exchange and how I dealt with them.
*I wrote this post ages ago, not expecting a pandemic to come along and ruin everyone’s travel plans. But I’m going to leave this sentence here for any future (lucky) readers who are actually allowed to travel!!
You might not get along with your roommates
I think dealing with roommates definitely comes under “difficult things about exchange”. But to be honest with you all, I think it’s pretty rare for it to be so extreme. That said, I think that there will always be something that comes up to cause friction between roommates.
During my exchange, I lived in a four-bedroom apartment with three other girls. Two of them were awesome and I’m still friends with them almost four years later! However, the third girl and I did NOT get along. At all. The worst part about this, I think, was that we did get along for the first few weeks. We did so much together, from sharing dinners in the evenings to going to campus events like glow-in-the-dark yoga. But unfortunately somewhere along the line we fell out and the entire rest of the time we lived together we were having a go at each other and generally making each other’s lives miserable.
Looking back now, I probably could have dealt with it a lot better, but I didn’t really know how to respond. I’d never lived with roommates before, after all. I’m not going to go into details but there were a lot of arguments about closing doors too loudly and taking our shoes off when we entered the apartment. Overall, we were probably both being a bit too sensitive about everything!
How I dealt with it:
I found that it helped me most to spend time outside of the apartment. My residence was super close to one of the libraries and there were lots of seating areas within the mall. So instead of sitting in my room or in our common area to talk to my friends or to study, just I went and sat somewhere else. I mean sure, I got a few weird looks for talking on Skype with other people around, but at least I wasn’t at home listing to my roommate complain about how I was “too loud”. Getting off-campus helped as well, but more on that later.
If you do get into a situation like this, I cannot express how much I recommend you talk to someone. Whether that’s your parents or friends back home, or maybe your other roommates or even your RA. I expect that the people around me would have helped me to deal with the whole situation better instead of getting worked up about every little thing.
You’ll probably get “campus fever” (like cabin fever, but with a whole university campus)
If you decide to live on campus while you’re away, campus fever will probably be something you find difficult about exchange. You know how they say you should’t live and work in the same space? That’s essentially what I was doing living on campus and it was something I really struggled with after a while.
I discovered it pretty early on, actually, because I had a field trip for one of my courses. It was SO exciting to get off-campus for the day! I found it was pretty easy to fix ‘campus fever’: all I had to do was go out and do something! Unfortunately, though, it’d come back as soon as I returned…
How I dealt with it:
The easiest one for me was to go for a walk in the river valley, right next to the university! This helped me because I got to spend time outside in the fresh air, as well as admire the scenery. On some weekends, I was also able to get on a trip out of Edmonton. Whilst they didn’t always go exactly to plan (like that one time I tried hiking in the snow and fell onto my butt about 5000 times), all of the trips were great fun and I met some great people.
I was also lucky enough to have family living in Edmonton. We’d often meet up to do things like watch a movie or a hockey game. I also often visited their place. Whether it was just to have dinner and hang out with their cat, or to study for my upcoming exams, it really helped.
It’s uni. So you have exams (lame)
Do I even need to include this? Of course the actual university part is going to be one of the difficult things about exchange! All university is difficult! The thing I hated most about university in Canada was that almost all of the courses consisted of 100% exams! How awful! I mean sure, on exchange your grades don’t count towards your GPA. You just have to pass. But that doesn’t make exams any less stressful!
Something that helped me feel more prepared for my exams was I discovered you could borrow a laptop from the library to take home! Up until the end of semester, I had worked on my assignments on the library desktop computers during opening hours. However, once I discovered I could bring a laptop home, it was loads easier to get things done; I was much less rushed. I’d definitely recommend looking into this at your host uni, especially if you didn’t bring your laptop like me.
Another great thing about my uni was that during exam periods, the libraries had therapy dog sessions! A group called CAWLS brought a few dogs in two days a week and you could pet them and generally relax in amongst the stress of exams. I went to at least three of those sessions and I LOVED them. They totally helped.
Chances are you’ll get homesick
Of all the difficult things about exchange, I’m not sure that homesickness was a HUGE deal for me, probably because I was pretty proactive with trying to prevent it. I definitely think it helped to have family in Vancouver and in Edmonton who I stayed with from time to time and who took me to do super cool things (which I’ll be writing about soon)!
I also kept in touch with my friends and family back home really regularly. Each week, I talked to my grandparents on Monday, my parents/sister on Friday, and my best friend whenever suited us. One day, the two of us talked for THREE HOURS! In addition to all that, my parents often wrote to me and sent little gifts like stickers to put in my diary. Of course there’s also social media, so there was plenty of interaction between myself and my family and friends.
Getting home isn’t any easier… You might get reverse culture shock
This was the most difficult thing about exchange for me, even though it happened after I got back! Admittedly, it was made worse because I was also starting my third year of university (ever heard of third year blues?). I went from having the best time overseas and experiencing all these amazing things, to going back to normal life where it felt like I’d never left. Legitimately on some days it felt like I’d dreamed the whole thing.
How I dealt with it:
I think it’s super important to have something to look forward to when you get home as well as keeping up the things you enjoyed most while you were away. Not long after I returned from Canada, my friend and I headed to Hobart and Melbourne. The trip was great because I could do a bit more travelling and I got to see my grandparents again.
In terms of continuing the things I enjoyed, I couldn’t really keep up skiing or snow sports because it doesn’t snow in Queensland. I did go to New Zealand with a friend’s family to ski that year, though! I also started volunteering at my local wildlife sanctuary. This allowed me to spend time outdoors with some awesome people, a lot of whom were on some form of exchange/overseas trip. More importantly, I acquired a whole bunch of new, cute animal friends!
Not everything on exchange is perfect. But that’s just life.
To sum up, there are plenty of difficult things about exchange. And I have no doubt that anyone on exchange will experience one or more of these things. But even though some parts sucked at the time, I wouldn’t change anything about my exchange. I think I said this above and in my last post but exchange is all about learning and growing. And how can you do that if you don’t have any challenges to face? Anyway, I hope this article hasn’t put anyone off going on exchange, but rather that it might help you be more prepared for when the less-than-good moments come!