In this article, I’ll briefly analysis my three months since my arrival and outset the postive and negative points of my exchange semester at Queen’s University located in Kingston, Ontario. Btw, since then, I’ve created a English Website « Wedding USB » for wedding photographer.

This blog topic will break down in 3 parts.
The first part will be about my cultural experience, the second part will be about the educational purpose and finally the last part will be about my travel experience.

My cultural experience

First of all, I have targeted this area, close to the american border, to be sure to have a clear insight of the north american culture. And it was the case, the Queen’s campus have a lot of similiraty with the american ones, that we could see on the movies. The campus is a city on a city, you have everyting inside restaurants, fastfoods, a huge fitness area, an olympic swimming pool, a lot of sport courts outdoor and indoor, an American football stadium of 5500 seats, a market, some huge libraries, and I have surely forget some other places.
So, this access to modern infrastructure enable us to practice sports at a high pace. I was part of the football team (the real football), the squash club, the running club and finally the Queen’s outdoor club. And by these activities, I have met a lot of nice people from different study areas, engineering, science, arts or medicine. It’s really cool in a sense that you could meet people from different backgrounds. Furthermore, with my football team we reached the semi finals of the Queen’s tournament, it was a nice experience and that created strong link betweeen us. In our team 10 different nationalities were represented (still less than the French Team).

Moreover, the novelty attract, I’ve never played Squash before to come here, and more I have never camped in the snow during a weekend by -10 degrees (see our Instagram account). I have found new hobbies, and met some nice people from all over the world. I’m now enjoying my last days, before to travel with some of us, for a last adventure in Canada.

The educational purpose

Queen’s University is one of the top rated business school in North America.
I personally see the exchange period as an opportunity to do finally what I like. So, I chose the courses that I really wanted, and didn’t care of other substitutes, like the expected work that a course require or the schedule of these ones.
By this way, I chose 4 courses that I never took before, I know the challenge. Learn 4 new notions, in a language that is not my own. Anyway, my goal was to discover new materials, that could help me for my future, and for my next internship.

And it was a real success, in all sincerity, I have learned more with these 4 courses that in the rest of my study. Here the professors have a real interest for what they are teaching, most of them are also researcher or professional in the same time. Moreover, 3 of my 4 courses were intended to fourth year students, some of them in master, so the level was really high.

For students curious about the courses that I took, here is a table of my four courses and my reviews.

My travel experience

Everyting started on the pier, here is a video link. I’ve enjoyed my first hot week there, it’s almost on the campus. Moreover, the city of Kingston is located on the 1000 islands area. From Kingston you can take a free ferry and go to the islands around the city, it’s really wild, you could discover some fantastic areas, I’ve personnaly swum with snakes in the lake water! And this post, track the best spots to view around the campus, link here.
Next, thanks to the Queen’s Outdoor club I had the luck to go two times in United States for two amazing adventures.
First, in Mount Washington during the fall break (5 days), you can see my video on the Instagram account. We managed to climb 3 summits during this period. It was a really cool and new experience. And to hike in so much snow in October is also impressive!

And secondly, I was on the Adirondacks, which is close to Kingston, it was in mid november, during 4 days. And we camped outside during all the period in the snow. With the low temperatures, it was an hard experience. But we learned how to survive in this hostile environment.
And now, for the last 10 days of my exchange I’m planning to do a big tour of the Quebec area and try to do touring ski if we can rent some materials. Follow our Instagram account to see our next trips.

A last word

Since the beginning of my enrollment at EmLyon, I was waiting for this period. And I did the maximum to be there. And that reached my expectations, I have learned a lot during the last 3 months maybe too much. Sometimes, with the quantity of work that I had, I wasn’t able to really enjoy my time here. However, I have probably find my way for the future. And I will have an interview in Quebec City for a potential internship, that could be the perfect opportunity for my future!
Don’t hesitate to connect with me on LinkedIn, and for business and personal purpose I will soon open a new personal blog.