The small flags hung as banners all along the atrium’s upper floor. Down below, hundreds of students filled the wide-open space — playing games, eating delicious food, and potentially meeting new life-long friends.
This wasn’t O-Week as usual: many of the students were older, or further along in their studies, than typical new arrivals to campus. Plus, Orientation Week proper wasn’t starting for another few days. This was a first reception for the newest international members of the Dal community: undergraduate, graduate and exchange students, arriving in Halifax from all around the world.
Dal’s international student population has grown significantly in recent years; in 2013-14, more than 14 per cent of all students at Dal came from outside of Canada. International Orientation was an opportunity for new students to not only get to know Dal, but the experience of studying in Canada.
The 400 students who took part in this year’s events were also able to get to explore the International Centre’s brand-new location: a bright, open space on the ground floor of the new LeMarchant Place. The venue hosted their first meet-and-greet to help kick off the week.
Getting to know Dal and Canada
International Orientation is more like two orientations, in many ways: from Wednesday, August 27 until Saturday, August 30, the International Centre hosted sessions for undergrads in the morning, graduate students in the afternoon, with an “end of orientation” party Saturday night to bring the week to a close.
Topics for the sessions included “student essentials" — covering everything from managing assignments to the particulars of the Canadian classroom — and “being an international student in Canada,” which looked at topics like immigration documents and Government of Canada regulations for international students. Other activities during the week included shopping trips to pick up essentials, sessions on health care in Canada, and games on the Studley Quad.
“The talks were really helpful, talking about health services and passport matters,” said Pedro Ciambra, a visiting undergraduate student from Brazil. “That was really important.”
Pedro is a Science Without Borders student, coming to Dal as part of an intitative through the CALDO consortium. He said of the schools he was looking at, Dal had the most attractive Computer Science program. He’s looking forward to his year in Halifax — and to winter’s snow, which he’s actually never seen in-person before.
“It’s a little bit cliché, but the people here are really nice,” he said, “though it’s also been rather windy.”
Halifax’s natural environment is an attraction for PhD student Yoshimasa Kubo as well. He's also keen to make it to Prince Edward Island at some point and explore the legacy of Anne of Green Gables. (A creation of Dal aluma Lucy Maud Montgomery, Anne is a national icon in Japan.)
“It’s a good environment [in Halifax], lots of greens, being able to see the ocean,” he said. “And the people are all so nice.”
