Other

1200 euros

In downtown, 3min from university, 10min away from bars and clubs and 50min away from(by public transport) UBC the big university of Vancouver

https://ywcavan.org/hotel

it is nice to be close to university and being located in downtown. However, I would recommend to try to find RBNB if you are more than 2 to come in Vancouver. It's always better to be in downtown because you are close to every touristic spots and bars. However, as exchange students, a lot of parties are at UBC, the biggest university of Vancouver. This university is far away from downtown (20min in uber and 50min in public transport).

As Europeans, one of the best bars in downtown is The Cambie. Good nightclubs include Greta Bar and Portside. UBC also organizes a lot of events that are open to non-UBC students. However, in general, Vancouver isn’t a city with a big nightlife scene. Going out on weeknights is “complicated” and not really fun.

I would recommend taking “introduction” courses so you don’t have too much work for school. I personally took intro to FA, micro, maths, entrepreneurship basics and cross cultural perspective. It’s also easy to choose classes in a way that you only have courses at the beginning of the week, which gives you long weekends. That way, you can travel on weekends. In general, professors don’t really care about absences because they know we’re only here for one term or one year and we want to travel around Canada.

The campus is really small. We are around 100 students. There aren’t many Europeans, so it’s easy to connect with each other. Non-europeans students don't really connect with us and prefer "stick together". For example, there are only three Europeans this term. I didn’t have a choice regarding the university, but if I could choose, I would pick UBC (the University of British Columbia). The university is much bigger and represents one-third of the city. There are also a lot of Europeans there, and parties are organized every week. However, the courses seem to be a bit more difficult than at FDU (Fairleigh Dickinson University), and students there have more homework than I do.

During my semester, I went to Toronto, Montréal, Quebec City, Victoria, and several cities around Vancouver. I didn’t go to the US because I didn’t feel like it, but it’s really easy and close. Some of my friends went to Seattle by train (it’s about 1 hour). In general, being on the West Coast is great because you can easily go to the mountains, and there are plenty of things to do in Vancouver and the surrounding cities. However, trips to the East Coast are expensive (around 200 euros for a flight).

Public transportation is good. Food prices are expensive. Bars and nightlife are cheaper than in Paris. In terms of safety, there are some homeless people in the streets. At first, it can seem scary, but they aren’t dangerous. Vancouver is known as “Raincouver” because of the many rainy days each year. However, I don’t feel like it rains more than in Paris, for example. It’s also not very cold in Vancouver compared to East Coast cities. In winter, temperatures are between 0 and 5 degrees, so it doesn’t really snow. The city is surrounded by nature, which is really nice.

At the beginning, I wanted to go to Toronto for my study abroad. In the end, Vancouver turned out to be really nice. Don’t expect life there to feel like an Erasmus experience because it’s much calmer. However, you can still meet people who want to go out. It’s a great place if you want to explore Canada in general, because if you choose the East Coast, you’ll probably never come to this part of the country. Moreover, Vancouver is close to the mountains, so if you like skiing, the nearest ski resort is only 40 minutes away from downtown by public transport.