Let me share with you my experience of what I did after I was admitted to MBA program and before I arrived in Vancouver. I am really glad I did what I did, and possibly someone may find it useful.
The first and most important thing that I did was arrange the trip to Canada to see all the Universities I applied to. I honestly think it was great thing to do for someone planning to spend 1.5 years of their life in a place, and potentially work there for even longer. It is great to see the pictures and read the articles and stories of others, but it is not the same as having your own experience. It may not be easy–especially for the international students–taking into account all the costs and time required, but if you have a chance to go, I can strongly recommend it.
I have to admit that I made my final decision to go to Sauder right after I got here. When I saw the campus and the city, I knew straight away that I wanted to study here and nowhere else.
The second thing I am happy I did was take some time off work. I had a great vacation before the program started, so I had a good rest, and was ready for the workload that we have now during the Core.
The third thing I did was spend a lot of time studying English and especially practicing my writing skills. I used to use English a lot at work, and though I am fairly fluent, it is always stressful in the beginning, especially when there are 100 pages of readings to complete for the next day, not to mention assignments. So I spent a lot of time refreshing my language skills and polishing my writing. It turned out to be very beneficial.
The last, but not the least thing I did was refresh my knowledge on some subjects. I am really bad with numbers, and don`t have any financial background, so I was reading a lot of books in the hopes of understanding the basic concepts. Though I have to admit, I didn`t spend enough time on that =) Still, this pre-read was very helpful.
I arrived in Vancouver on August 1st, almost a month before the program began. The reason for that was my plan to attend ISP – International Student Preparation and Pre-core (4 courses of review). It turned out to be a great experience overall. Let me share a few details about it.
ISP is a 10 day program–quite intense, but very useful for international students. Sauder is trying to help international students to integrate in North American/Canadian culture, providing an overview of Canadian history, traditions, business specifics and cultural patterns. There was also a number of sessions about living in Vancouver (some tips were quite useful), the specifics of intercultural communication (as the program is very international, we need to know how to deal with the challenges it may bring), team work, and many others. Also, we had a chance to meet some second year MBA students, who shared their experiences in the program. It was also a great opportunity to meet our classmates before the program, and get to know each other better. Also the workload was not that intense yet, so I had a chance to explore the city.
The other benefit of the program is that it gives you the opportunity to adjust to the style of teaching that the professors use here. At the same time, it helps us to get used to the language, which is important for international students.
Overall, it was a very interesting and useful experience, and I can definitely recommend it to all international students.
