How Waterloo's international exchange program helps students find a new perspective at home and abroad
“I used to think Waterloo was boring, but maybe I was just boring,” laughs Kaitlyn Bowles, a mathematics and business administration student. “Doing an exchange taught me how to make whatever reality I was living in the one I wanted it to be.”
Bowles is one of the thousands of students who have participated in Waterloo’s exchange program, which is based on reciprocal arrangements with more than 120 universities in 30 countries around the world.
For every Waterloo student who spends a term at a foreign institution, a student from that institution spends the same term here. Students pay tuition to their home university and transfer credits they earn back to their primary institution for equivalent classes.
Kaitlyn Bowles's adventures took her all over Europe, including a visit to nearby Brussels, Belgium
For Bowles, the decision to do an exchange was an easy one. “My dad did an exchange in France in university,” she says, “and growing up, he would often tell us stories about his adventures there.” After filling out applications and working with academic advisors from the Faculty of Mathematics, Bowles was accepted at Tilburg University in the Netherlands for the winter 2024 term. Bowles chose Tilburg for the strength of its economics program and signed up for courses in public sector, experimental and environmental economics that would fulfill her electives requirements back home.
“Students often think about exchange programs as only being for certain majors,” says Janessa Zheng, the Faculty of Math’s outbound exchange advisor. “In fact, the exchange programs are available for students in many areas of study, including all majors in the Faculty of Mathematics. Most of the students interested in exchange can find a program that matches their personal and academic goals.”
“I wasn’t very intimidated by the prospect of adjusting to a new country because I grew up in the United States,” Bowles says. “Still, it was a huge change.” Instead of regular homework, classes were built around a single exam so rigorous that students were expected retake it automatically. “In one of my friend’s psychology classes, over half the class had to retake the exam,” she says.
Fortunately for Bowles, she found great camaraderie in studying with her fellow exchange students – and her exchange courses were graded as pass/fail before transferring back to Waterloo.
Bianca Zamora (centre) found community with her fellow exchange students in Brighton, U.K.
Bianca Zamora, a fifth year Statistics student, had to make similar academic adjustments during her winter 2024 exchange at the University of Sussex in Brighton, U.K. For her, the lack of weekly homework assignments meant more freedom – and an exercise in balancing schoolwork and her desire to travel. “I wrote an exam while attending an F1 race in Monaco!” she laughs.
For inbound exchange students coming to Waterloo, the university’s entrepreneurial culture and larger homework load can also be an adjustment. Hanxuan Lin, a computer science master’s student at Lund University in Sweden, recently completely an exchange term at Waterloo. “What truly distinguishes the experience at Waterloo for me is the intensity of the workload and assessment structure,” he says. “I am amazed by the culture of grit and determination here, which has inspired me to re-evaluate my own approach to education and career.”
What unites all exchange students, however, both outgoing and incoming, is the opportunity for new cultural experiences and personal growth. Bowles and her new friends took a whirlwind bus tour to Prague, Budapest and Vienna, and celebrated King’s Day at a street party back in the Netherlands. Zamora found the cure for homesickness in picnics and beach sunsets with her new friends. And Lin has enjoyed “the diverse opportunities that Canada has to offer” which included taking a cruise at Niagara Falls, sampling poutine and bagels in Montreal, cheering at a Toronto Raptors game and hiking through “the breathtaking landscapes” of Banff.
“I learned on exchange how to get out of my comfort zone and say yes to potential adventures instead of sitting in my room,” Bowles says.
To learn more about doing an exchange to or from Waterloo, visit the International Experience program website.
