The Age Old Accommodation Nightmare   (0 Comments)

For the first part of my Year Abroad, I chose to take a 15-week language course in French as a Foreign Language at Université Laval, Québec. My grammar was pretty poor, the course promised to be intensive and thorough, and I’d already come to the conclusion that I wanted to do something a bit out of the ordinary – nearly 4 months in Québec would be the first time I’d been to North America, and the longest time I’d spent away from home.

The application process was simple enough; download the forms from Laval’s website – application, accommodation, payment etc. – complete and return them. I sent all the forms in the same envelope back to the School of Modern Languages’ office in good time and waited to hear. I sent an email to confirm that my forms were crossing the Atlantic and could they please inform me when they arrived.

When I did receive a reply, it was to tell me that I had been accepted onto the course of my choice, that I would have to pay by bank transfer, and that I would need to sit an online aptitude test to assess what level of tuition I would need.

Now, I don’t blame myself for not noticing at that point that there was no mention of accommodation. At my home university, Durham, if you’re accepted onto a course, you’re guaranteed accommodation somewhere in the university. I do, however, blame myself for not confirming my accommodation before flying to Canada.

I arrived a few days before term started to a situation that I believe affects too many Year Abroad students; the Residence Service, located in a building all of 200 metres away from the School of Modern Languages, had no idea who I was and that I had requested accommodation on campus.

It seems that my forms, all in the same envelope addressed to the faculty, had made it across the Atlantic, but somewhere in the final 200m of the transfer, they had been mislaid.

For a University of 40,000 students, there are only 2,300 rooms on campus. I added my name to the waiting list, and improvised for 3 weeks whilst looking for another option, all the while hoping to be able to stay on campus. I spent 6 nights in a classroom, sleeping on a camp-bed, 3 nights in a hotel and 2 weeks at the YWCA - I’m a guy so this was a surreal experience!

Eventually I found a great apartment that, now that I’m home, I actually really miss. But it does still annoy me that I could’ve avoided a lot of hassle and saved a lot of money if I’d remembered this:

It’s not important that Durham doesn’t often send people to Québec, which meant it was hard to get advice specific to Laval from my department – some rules about preparing your Year Abroad apply to everyone, and the onus is on YOU to check everything is sorted before you go.

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