Getting into the Belizean swing of things
My first week in Belize was a wild ride! After arriving in Belize City, three members of my cohort and I headed to Caye Caulker for a couple nights before arriving at Dr. Roy Young’s nature resort located in the Community Monkey Sanctuary at Bermudian Landing to meet up with the rest of the...
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Tips for Travel in Vietnam
Key things to know before traveling VietnamWhether you’re traveling solo or going with a group to Vietnam, traveling from Canada to Vietnam for the first time can have a steep learning curve with many rewards along the way. My name is Matheus, a prior first-year engineering student, and I got the...
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Embracing Australian Language Shock
After sleeping for most of my first two days in Australia, I attended my first orientation meeting and the conductor of the seminar said: Don’t think of everything we do here as backwards, wrong or bad, think of it as something different and embrace the change while you’re here. This stuck with me...
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My Exchange in Spain
One of the most incredible moments that I experienced when I was living in Huelva, Spain happened on the very first day I went out into the city, and ended up completely changing how I would remember my time in Spain. My mom, my dad and myself had just came back from the University of Huelva after...
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My Host Country - Scotland
Hello fellow VIU students,I’m here to share my experience in my host country, which was the United Kingdom in Scotland. I was in the highlands and islands of Scotland in a town called Inverness. To be quite frank, the town was very similar to Nanaimo with the coast line along it and I was there for...
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My Tanzanian Work Experience
*This volunteer opportunity was accessed through Uniterra's Leave for Change program as part of VIU's partnership, funded by the Global Engagement International Work Opportunity Grant. The Global Engagement Grant program is available to VIU staff and faculty.When we drove in to the village of...
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Insight from India: Using a Global Lens to Understand Canada’s Waste Problem
Before travelling to India, I hoped to learn something from my experience that would be useful to bring into my future classrooms. Upon returning home and reflecting, I was surprised that I could learn and gain so much from a short three-week period. This blog post will cover the topic of waste,...
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Returning Home, Harder Than You’d Think
Before you go abroad you hear and learn all about culture shock and you also talk about re-entry and the possibility of reverse culture shock. But the idea of returning to a country and culture you grew up in or are extremely familiar with and feeling discomfort and unfamiliar seemed strange....
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What I wish I knew before going on exchange to the Netherlands
Getting that letter stating that you’ve been accepted to the exchange destination of your dreams is a feeling that I cannot describe. Thoughts run through your head at a million miles a minute: will I love it? Will I make memories that will last me a lifetime? Will I form relationships with people...
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