Travel Report - Toronto, CA

York University – Schulich School of Business, Fall 2016

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Table of Contents

1. Introduction ............................................................................................................ 2

2. Preparations ............................................................................................................ 3 2.1 Preparing for the school .......................................................................................................... 3 2.2 Preparing to travel ................................................................................................................... 4

3. Exchange period ...................................................................................................... 5 3.1 Living in Toronto ..................................................................................................................... 6 3.2 Schulich School of Business ..................................................................................................... 7 3.3 Free time in Toronto .............................................................................................................. 10

4. Final comments ...................................................................................................... 12

1. Introduction I spent my graduate level exchange in Toronto, Canada during fall semester 2016 (4.9-15.12.2016). This was my first time abroad for a longer period of time and for that the experience was perfect. Climate and cultural differences aren’t very big in relation to Finland, however Toronto provided an interesting multicultural environment with influences of Canadian culture combining aspects from the U.S. and Europe (especially France in Quebec). You should apply to Toronto, Schulich School of Business for exchange if you are interested in North-America in a very multicultural context and not afraid of a bit more workload at school. I also considered useful to have a couple of years of working experience to fit it to the MBA program provided at Schulich.

2. Preparations In this chapter I will list some things to consider before leaving to Canada. The Schulich School of Business proved very helpful and clear in all preparations needed. Also, Canada is rather easy country to arrive in as a foreigner, at least with a Finnish passport.

2.1 Preparing for the school After getting initial acceptance from Aalto, I received the first contact from Schulich School of Business on 1st of April from the Graduate International Program Coordinator. In this message she asked me to deliver the following documents:

1. Recent photograph of yourself (does not have to be a passport photo) 2. Current transcripts/grade reports (please translate to English) 3. Proof of English proficiency if you study in a language other than English 4. Resume or curriculum vitae (in English)

These documents were to be delivered via an online form 1st of May the latest. I sent a passport photo, official transcript in English and my CV with a recommendation letter. As the Master’s programmes in Aalto are more or less all in English, there is no need for the proof of English proficiency (which would in other case mean completing an additional test that costs somewhere under 100e). The next contact from the program coordinator considered on-campus housing that had to be confirmed May 13th the latest. More about housing in Chapter 3.

On 16th of May I received my official acceptance letter from the program coordinator. This document should be printed and scanned as it will serve as the main document that will prove your student status when arriving to Canada and before receiving your student card. On 24th of May we received information needed to complete our course selections online in addition to account(s) information needed to sign-in to the intranet (mail, information page(s), public computers) of the school. Prepare to create many accounts for various online sources and write them down for future use. This account information is used to apply to courses and school email among other things. More about courses in Chapter 3. This same mail included information about UHIP insurance, the only payment we needed to conduct to attend the school (around 112 dollars). What you might find useful before going to Toronto is to walk into your bank and give them a permission to transfer money from your Finnish bank account to your student card in Canada, that serves as the only way of paying for the UHIP insurance. Another option is that you create a Canadian bank account in Toronto, transfer money from your credit card / cash to this bank account and further transfer this money to the student card with which you can pay the UHIP insurance. I did the latter option and it worked well. Also, you might find the bank account useful later in getting a mobile phone contract. The main thing to remember is that you won’t be able to do any transfers from a Finnish bank account to any Canadian bank account / student card without physically visiting your bank back at Finland and giving them permission to do so. Next the programme coordinator contacted us about an Exchange Webinar held twice, in June and in July. I didn’t attend these sessions as they were held in inconvenient times on Finnish time zone. These sessions weren’t mandatory and I didn’t find it problematic skipping them. Last contact from the programme coordinator was about orientation and teaching schedules to help preparing for potential travelling during and after the teaching and examination periods.

2.2 Preparing to travel These preparations are good to be started after receiving the official acceptance letter from Schulich School of Business. The first mail from the programme coordinator of Schulich included a good check-list of things to do before traveling to Canada. In the next sections I will list some of the most critical preparations. I got my flights from Icelandair with one stop in Reykjavik. The total cost of these was around 700 euros. I wasn’t asked about the TOR-HEL ticket back home when arriving to Canada, but you have to be able to state the duration of your stay in the form handed to you on the flight to Canada. I purchased a return ticket just in case and was able to change the dates later on without major additional costs.

With Finnish passport, for a stay of less than 6 months, you need to get yourself an ETA document before traveling to Canada. This took me less than a day and the application was very simple and easily accessible on the internet with a cost of around 7 dollars. If you are willing to travel to the U.S. during your stay, you need to get an ESTA with a similar kind of process. If you do so, please note that an ESTA is valid for 90 days after you cross the U.S. border and if you go back to Canada from this point, the 90 days of limit for staying in the U.S. continues to decrease. Therefore, e.g. going to the U.S. before your exchange period in Toronto and returning there at the end of it might not be possible because of the 90 day limit. There will be more information provided during the orientation week about traveling to the U.S. When traveling to the U.S. and Canada, many countries are required to have a passport that is valid for at least 6 months after returning back home from the trip. However, the Finnish passport is one of those documents that does not have to be valid after 6 months, but it is enough to have it valid only for the time of stay. You might want to consider getting a travel insurance if you don’t already have one. Schulich requires you to purchase their UHIP health insurance (around 112 dollars) to be able to attend the school, but this does not have a very large coverage. Housing is something that is good to consider before arriving to Toronto if you are willing to stay in one place during your stay and with lower costs. I got my room via Airbnb from a good location and cheap price as I started searching multiple months before the trip. However, some of the exchange students spent the first weeks / month in searching for an apartment and managed to find a rather decent place to live. Also couch surfing was considered a good option. More about housing in Chapter 3. When crossing the Canadian border prepare to answer questions (at least) about the following: what you’re doing in Canada (print you acceptance letter with you), how long you’re going to stay and where are you staying. I had documents printed regarding all of these with me and found them useful.

3. Exchange period The school starts with a couple of days of orientation. These sessions were very useful, as we went through all practicalities about living in Toronto, help in UHIP payments and getting your student card etc. The Program coordinator and other Schulich personnel are very helpful in any issues you might have during your exchange. On these sessions you will also meet all the other (around 30-40) exchange students. The campus is on the north side of Toronto, around 1,5h away from downtown.

3.1 Living in Toronto I decided to stay downtown and got myself an Airbnb apartment from the Annex area with a rent of around 640 e /month. I would warmly recommend Annex or any other area close to the subway line to anyone who wants to experience Toronto as a city and not only concentrate on school and other students. I traveled around 1,5 hours by subway and bus to the school, however in the MBA program I only had 2 days a week with lectures on Keele campus in North York. Schulich also has a downtown campus in the financial district in which I had one of my courses.

The main way of getting from one place to another in Toronto is via public transport or Uber. Public transport in Toronto is pretty good, although more expensive than in Helsinki. Subway is clean and convenient, but regularly late or closed. However, all of these issues were well informed and did not bother me as long as I left home early enough. The benefit of the MBA program is that there were not many morning lectures, so you don’t necessarily have to travel much on the worst rush hours. The cost of a monthly pass for an adult student was around 112 dollars / month. To get the student discount

you have to get a TTC (Toronto public transport) student pass that costs around 7 dollars. Price level in Toronto is generally on the same level or a bit less than in Helsinki. Public transportation and mobile phone contracts were generally more expensive than in Finland, but e.g. food in restaurants was more affordable. The level of tipping in Toronto is generally 15%, but some say that it is raising slowly to the level of 18%. In North-America one has to keep in mind that the prices do no include a tax. In addition to cash (that is more commonly used than in Finland) I used a credit card for the whole trip as a payment method without any bigger issues. Climate in Toronto generally gets rather cold during fall/winter season, however during my stay the fall period was much warmer than usual. When I arrived at the start of Sep the weather was around 25-30 degrees Celsius for the whole first month. With the climate being more moist than in Finland this temperature felt much hotter than summers in Helsinki. From this point onwards the climate slowly turned colder, however the winter and first snow only came a bit before I left Toronto at the start of Dec. Climate-wise it is recommended to have an exchange period in fall in Toronto, as the

Image 1: View form my home street in Annex

Image 2: A view form my home street in Annex

winters get very cold from January onwards. Summers I heard are awesome and beautiful, however I didn’t get a chance to experience that fully during my stay. As mentioned earlier, mobile phone contracts are much more expensive in Canada than in Finland. In Toronto, Whatsapp is generally in use, and it was the main way of communication among the exchange students and other students in Schulich. Therefore a bigger data package did come to use, although there is pretty good availability of free Wi-Fi on many public places. I got my contract from Rogers, it was first prepaid but as I ran out of data I managed to upgrade the contract to a monthly contract with a Canadian bank account. The best contracts available without a Canadian passport seemed to be from Fido according to other exchange students. As a recap, a Canadian bank account proved useful for me in getting myself a mobile phone contract and in paying for the mandatory UHIP insurance for Schulich. However, I’m sure one could manage without one as long as they have settled transfers through e.g. Western Union through their Finnish bank back at home before leaving Finland. I personally got my bank account from BMO (Bank of Montreal), that has a very convenient location at Keele campus.

3.2 Schulich School of Business York University Schulich School of Business has one of the most appreciated MBA programs in Canada. York University is a large school with a broad range of subjects all provided mostly on Keele campus located in North York. In addition to Keele, some Schulich courses are provided in the downtown campus in Ernst & Young building in Toronto financial district. Schulich emphasises internationality and most of the students are from somewhere else than Canada. Workload at Schulich is generally heavier than in Aalto University School of Business - and to my understanding, in comparison to other MBA programs as well. Professors are well-known professionals of their own fields and are eager to use their networks to regularly provide interesting guest lecturers to their classes. Teaching style is much more interactive than in Aalto, prepare to introduce yourself to a group of people multiple times during first week. Also, in all of my courses participation formed a part of the final mark. There was a good amount of business courses across all specialisations provided to exchange students. Only Arts and Media courses in Schulich required an extra application to get into the course, otherwise the courses seemed rather open for anyone to apply (although you always have to have some basics of the subject). Before the school started, exchange students could choose 10 courses they would like to apply to, in priority order. I got into all of my top priority courses, however the selections could also be changed rather easily during the first week of school. I only had courses without any final exams and with an ongoing project or multiple assignments instead. On all of my courses I felt the atmosphere at class very open, supporting and collaborating among the students. One of the best things was the possibility to work with and learn from the other MBA students who generally had started their careers on a specific field before attending the school.

Costly course materials are pretty general at the school. The best way to cope with this is by sharing the package with a group of other students. To get international exchange studies as my minor to master’s degree in Aalto, I had to complete a minimum of 4 full-credit courses (3cr). Although back at home I am an Information and Service Management student, I decided to do a combination of Marketing and Arts and Media classes at Schulich. Arts and Media courses are a very Schulich specific course category with the school having the only MBA program with this specialization in Canada (or in that part of the world pretty much). Marketing, to my understanding, is something that is especially well arranged at Schulich as well. Arts and Media courses all required a separate application to get into the course. However, I managed to get in and understand the content of the courses without any specific work experience on the area beforehand. I took the following courses, all of which I warmly and equally recommend to anyone interested in the subject: ARTM 6350R - The Business of Creativity in the Cultural Sector

Broad topic of the course is best described in the course outline: ”This course examines both complex evolving commercial creative businesses and the not for profit performing arts sector. For commercial creative businesses, topics will include perspectives on creativity; power, conflict and politics relating to managing unions; free-lance talent and celebrities; and the impact of the competitive and regulatory environment. The different revenue models of performing arts organizations and how they manage risk will be studied in the not for profit sector. A key component of this course is to examine the business of intellectual rights.“ The course was taught by 3 professors: Trina McQueen – veteran broadcaster, Peter Schneider – vice president of legal affairs of Cineflix productions and Roberta Smith – COO of Toronto Symphony Orchestra. With 3 professors the course included 3 assignments very different from each other (very interesting and fun). Group of students was small and course included many visiting lecturers from a broad range of arts and media professionals in Canada. This was my only course taught in downtown campus.

MKTG 6800A - Customer Experience Design This course was nothing that I expected it would be. It went through customer experience design for marketing executives, emphasising strategic perspective instead of practical customer touch points (i.e. building the experience itself). The course was taught by Markus Giesler and Ela Veresiu, both well-known academics of the field (unlike my other courses that were all taught by industry professionals). In this course the students wrote columns that were published in American Marketing Association’s website in addition to making a poster and a video of the chosen subject. Giesler and

Veresiu had a broad approach to helping the students in setting career objectives and how to achieve them e.g. social media presence was part of the course grade.

MKTG 6440A - New Products This course went through the whole process of new product development from business perspective. I found the course very useful as it seemed to provide the whole subject of marketing in a nutshell. The course had a very practical approach and the basic frameworks and theory weren’t used too much. Instead student teams completed a new product development project throughout the course in addition to multiple case studies at class. The course was taught by a marketing veteran Steve Pulver, who was one of the best teachers I’ve had, however also the most demanding one according to workload and provoking discussion at class.

ARTM 6340U - Managing the Broadcast and Digital Worlds: Strategy and Change in Television and Online Media This course identified and examined central issues in the management of public and private television enterprises in Canada, and online programming undertakings. Course was taught by Canadian television industry leader Douglas Barrett and included a guest lecturer on almost all of the lectures. The course included one of the most interesting assignments I’ve had: all the students were assigned one executive in television industry and we were to interview these executives 2 times, write a report and discuss the findings at class.

Image 3: Keele campus in North York

3.3 Free time in Toronto Although the school might seem like a lot of work, there was still enough time to explore the city, travel and meet new people. Most of the courses had only one lecture per week (mine was from Mon-Wed), leaving a lot of time during the weekends for exploring the city and its surrounding areas (that is, if there wasn’t too many deadlines coming up). The general time for traveling was during reading week, which situated itself in Fall 2016 semester to 25-28.10 and at least in my case gave a chance to spend one week in New York plus some free time in Toronto. These dates are shared before the school starts so you can book your flights well beforehand. On graduate level exchange we had a group of 30-40 exchange students mostly from Europe, 21-26 years old on average. The biggest groups were from Italy and France. When it comes to previous work experience and education, the other exchange students were on pretty much the same level as I was with around a couple of years of previous work experience. Therefore, although the MBA students seemed pretty experienced in their own fields, it didn’t feel too overwhelming with a group around you in the same situation. There were some activities arranged by the different clubs at Schulich. At the start of the semester there is an event called Schulympics held in a camping area around 4 hour drive away from Toronto. I heavily recommend attending this event (discounted cost of around 100 dollars for exchange students), as you will have a chance to meet other students and spend time with them in a more relaxed atmosphere. The camp is very beautiful and full of activities.

Image 4: View from my window in Schuliympics camp

In general the culture of Canada and Toronto is very easy to adapt to at least for a person that is used to living in Northern Europe. The city and Schulich School of Business are very multicultural so I never felt like an outsider as an exchange student. It seems that it is harder to find people who were actually born in Toronto or lived there for a long time, as the city itself is rather young and new. Culture in Canada is very kind and polite, less so in Toronto, but I could still see the difference to Helsinki: people were eagerly apologising when they passed you by. Also, multiple times I experienced a Torontonian offering help if I looked even slightly bit confused or opened a map on a public place. If you are at all interested in food of different nationalities, Toronto is one of the best places to go to. There is one of the largest amounts of restaurants offering food from different cultures in relation to the amount of people living in Toronto. I also felt that basic food at restaurant was much cheaper than in Finland and I mostly ate out for the whole exchange period. I personally lived in Koreatown, so that food came pretty familiar. In addition to Koreatown, there are certain areas especially for Chinese, Italian and Indian foods, however you can find pretty much anything around the city. I even found a Finnish shop and Swedish meatballs! Bars and clubs always close at 2 am in Toronto, therefore it was surprisingly challenging to find great nightlife in the city. However, as with restaurants, there is also great variability of clubs and bars and specific after hours bars are rather common as well, although illegal. One way of continuing your night after hours is to go to specific Chinese restaurants and order ‘cold tea’. Drinking in public is strongly forbidden in Toronto and a paper bag doesn’t fool anyone. If you are interested in the happenings of the city, grab a free, weekly distributed NOW magazine provided in most locations and check the listing of music and other events in the city. I personally found the music scene pretty exciting and a great way of meeting new people. There are interesting big and small artists from various genres performing on a daily basis. In addition to the basic tourist stuff in Toronto (e.g. CN Tower and Toronto Islands), staying in Toronto offers great possibilities for exploring other parts of Canada and the U.S. General destinations included Montréal, Ottawa and Niagara Falls in Canada and New York, Washington, Chicago and Boston in the U.S. Also, Cuba is a very popular holiday destination for Canadians. Many exchange students seemed to concentrate on Eastern parts of Canada and North-America, but e.g. Vancouver and Calgary in the West offer some great nature and a very different Canada as well. My flights to various destinations in the Eastern parts of Canada and the U.S. cost around 150 dollars per return trip. Toronto has a very convenient and modern downtown airport located in Toronto Islands.

4. Final comments I would warmly recommend Toronto and Schulich School of Business for master level exchange to anyone who is interested in good business education and inspiring teachers and not afraid of a bit bigger workload than in Aalto master level courses. I personally got interested in Schulich as a school in general and would consider it as a potential MBA program if I wasn’t graduating from Aalto as a Master of Science. I feel that I learned a lot on all of my courses, and not only about the course contents but also about working efficiently and concentrating on the most important things when having a lot to do. My presentation skills enhanced significantly, as in comparison to Aalto I was interacting at class much more on a weekly basis and also gave more presentations than I usually do in my ISM courses back home. Multicultural environment in Toronto and very international Schulich School of Business taught me a lot about different cultures and people with various different working experiences. I also learned to live and do things alone. I consider myself much more open and willing to meet new people now. A certain level of small-talk sticks to you if its something you enjoy. I hope this report is of use to anyone considering Toronto as an exchange destination. I personally wouldn’t do anything differently now that I look back. If you have any questions about Toronto or Schulich, feel free to contact me at minni@q-sisto.fi.

Image 5: View to Toronto downtown form Toronto Islands