Transfer report University of Calgary Haskayne School of ...

[Pages:9]Transfer report University of Calgary Haskayne School of Business Winter semester 2017

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Views from Sulphur Mountain in Banff National Park

1. Preparing for the exchange

First time I heard from the University of Calgary was through email in early August. The university's application process was straightforward, requiring the student to make a study plan by choosing four MBA courses for the semester, and send their CV and study transcript to Calgary. At this point the student exchange coordinator from Haskayne School of Business requires you to pick only MBA courses. Therefore, if you wish to study courses from other departments pick MBA courses initially, and after arriving to Calgary change the courses accordingly. It is possible to change courses for up to 2 weeks after the start of the semester.

With the initial documents the University sends instructions for how to apply for a student apartment at the campus. The application is done online in the residence portal. The residence application costs about $50CAD. Though the apartments offered at University of Calgary are way more expensive than the average price of rental apartments in the city (at least they were in early 2017), the convenience of living on campus might well be worth it. If you want to look for an apartment from the private market I would suggest posting an ad on , which is a very popular online site for classified ads. You might also want to ask around the University Facebook groups for potential rooms or roommates to look an apartment with.

Finnish citizens do not need a visa for visiting or studying in Canada for a maximum of six months. Instead, students need an Electronic Travel Authorization (ETA), which is applied online for the price of $7 CAD. Although visa is not necessary to enter Canada, the immigration might ask for your exchange invitation letter, so remember to bring a copy of it.

There are no direct flights to Calgary from Helsinki. Therefore, airfares are relatively expensive. I recommend searching for fares through online airfare search engines, such as Skyscanner (lowest prices I spotted in 2016: one way from Helsinki ranging from 400 to 600, return for 800 to 1000), or looking for tickets through Icelandair that offers tickets to Calgary with a layover in Reykjavik.

For the MBA program, the winter semester in Calgary starts early with the block week courses. For my exchange, these courses started on the 2nd of January, while the normal courses started on the 9th of January. Due to this, most of the orientation events were held early in the year before I arrived in Calgary, and thus cannot comment on the activities organized by the student union. Most other exchange students largely did not take part in the orientation for the same reason.

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2. Exchange studies

The winter semester ranges from January to the end of April. The MBA semester consists of a block week followed by the regular courses consisting of 13 or 14 weekly sessions. The block week during the winter semester starts very early in the year during the winter semester, and is not recommended for exchange students because of potential jet lag. Hence, if you absolutely want to join a block week course, arrive to Calgary early. The block week course can help you during the rest of the semester, as it is only a week-long course in the beginning of the semester, relieving your workload during the rest of the semester.

The semester exam dates range from mid-April until the end of the month. Most elective and advanced MBA courses do not have a final exam. Although the courses I took did not have final exams, they had a relatively heavy workload. With no exams, a lot of the work is group works and papers with deadlines in the end of the semester. This means less work in the beginning of the semester, with most of the deadlines happening during the last 2-3 weeks of the semester.

The course selection of the MBA programme is rather small, with the courses consisting of basic and advanced business topics. There are courses in fields not available in Aalto, such as real-estate planning and different gas and oil industry topics. As I mentioned before, the MBA program mandates that incoming exchange students pick a full course load of MBA courses for their semester. You are free to change these freely with the permission of the Aalto student office, as well as the permission from the local department/professor from Calgary. You can pick graduate or undergraduate courses if they fit into your degree at Aalto.

The University of Calgary is massive with courses offered in various fields, but accessing information regarding the offered courses is difficult prior to arriving to Calgary. If you want to research courses beforehand, my advice would be to try to contact either the individual schools directly for information about the courses offered, or the International Student Association (CISSA) for further contacts and advice about the course offerings of other schools of the University.

BSEN/ENCI 691 - Fundamentals Project Management

? Level: Graduate ? 6 ECTS ? Instructor: Blake Kanewischer ? Midterm exam, project with accompanied documents and a presentation, evaluation of

other teams' documentation

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The fundamentals of project management course offered a comprehensive overview of project management. The lectures consisted of going through the book which was divided into 12 separate lectures. The group was divided into 6 project teams that got to decide a charitable project for themselves to accomplish during the semester. The weekly workload consisted of documentation generated for the project, as well as evaluating other teams' documentation for their own projects. The midterm exam was done off the classroom, with the exercises published on Sunday and the deadline being Tuesday. Doing the course project was exciting, with a lot of freedom given to students regarding what they wanted their outcome to be. I recommend the course, especially if you have not studied project management before.

ENTI 793 - Tech & Innovation Management

? Level: Graduate ? 6 ECTS ? Instructor: Mohammed Keyhani ? Group project with a final report and presentation, individual presentation and a

discussion leadership

In this course, the topics related to innovation management and new technologies. The classes were interesting, discussion vibrant, and the professor enthusiastic about the topics he taught. The course consists of a large group project, where the outcome and method was decided by the team themselves. Our team decided to do a business opportunity analysis for a local mixed reality start-up. While the project was hard, and the stakeholders demanding, ultimately the assignment was very rewarding and we learned a lot during the semester. A major in-class assignment is to hold a discussion leadership on a topic given to you by the professor. This presentation includes summarizing a couple of articles on the topic, fostering discussion within the classroom, as well as weighing in with your own opinions and experiences.

MKTG 785 - New Venture Marketing

? Level: Graduate ? 6 ECTS ? Instructor: Deborah Andrus ? Group project, group presentation, three group papers, two individual essay

assignments

In the New Venture Marketing class the focus was on the high-level idea of marketing for smaller organizations. Having taken Aalto Venture Program course with a similar topic

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(Entrepreneurial Marketing) the biggest difference was the Canadian focus on larger corporate organizations, featuring topics such as patent and trademark law, and corporate innovation. The course also featured a group component, during which the group was tasked to come up with a new start-up idea and do various market analyses studied during the lectures. During class, we pitched our idea to three local entrepreneurs, as well as held two separate presentations of our business, as well as wrote two smaller mid-term papers, and one final paper on the new venture idea. In the first individual paper the students had to track down a patent given to students by the professor, and visualize its development with a visual graph. The second paper's topic was the understanding an academic new venture marketing theory and, again, visualize its development through a graph.

The course was heavily recommended by the local study office, because the professor is apparently very respected. I was expecting a more entrepreneurial approach to the topic, with a more hands-on approach and was not entirely satisfied with the group project which was graded in a strict manner restricting creativity. The individual assignments were useless, and got a lot of negative feedback from the rest of the course too. Overall the course workload was one of the heavier ones.

SGMA 601 - Strategic Management I

? Level: Graduate ? 6 ECTS ? Instructor: Ayesha Malhotra ? Individual quizzes, group project, group final report, group assignment

The Strategic Management I course is a mandatory course for MBA students introducing more advanced topics regarding corporate strategy. The course featured a major project for an external stakeholder, which in our case was a local university-affiliated health innovation and research lab. Prior to the project, the client company was not very well known, which made the project relatively difficult, but also rewarding as we had to learn about the healthcare innovation environment in Calgary. The other group project was a Harvard Business Review case that we had to hold a presentation about. The quizzes were about reading assigned during the class. A large part of the lectures will be repetition to anyone who has taken any business strategy courses.

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3. Free time and other information

Calgary has a continental climate, characterized by cold winters and warm summers. Temperatures of down to -25 to -30 degrees can be expected during the winter semester, but usually these cold snaps only last for a week or two. Still, the average temperatures are a bit colder than in Helsinki which should be prepared for. The city is located on the prairie, causing strong winds all year round. On the other hand, Calgary also averages 332 sunny days per year, making it the sunniest city in Canada. Remember to bring warm clothing especially for any outdoor activities you are interested in. The campus features tunnels and corridors to various buildings, so going to class without a jacket is manageable even during -25 degree cold snaps.

Calgary can be characterized as the smallest large city in the world. By land area the city is huge, as Calgary mostly comprises of suburbs consisting of detached homes. The downtown core consists mostly of office buildings and offers very few interesting activities. Kensington is a pleasant neighbourhood with nice restaurants and bars that I recommend checking out early, as it is very close to the campus and provides pleasant evening activities. The most important and accessible shopping malls near the campus are the Westbrook Mall, which features a Walmart for the cheap groceries, and Market Mall, which is a much larger mall featuring various stores. I recommend doing your shopping in these malls, as the stores located on the campus are much more expensive.

The cost of living on campus is very high. A studio costs around a thousand euros per month, while a typical four person dormitory costs around 500 euros per month per room. The international students are usually placed in the Cascade Hall. The residences are adequate, but lack basic cooking and cleaning equipment. The residences feature a coin-operated laundry room and study rooms. The apartments from the private market can be cheaper, but naturally require more time and work to explore.

Students can buy a public transportation sticker for about $150CAD to be attached on their student cards, that entitle them to unlimited use of public transport until the end of the semester. The university is located next to a local light train stop, as well as multiple bus lines. The nearby malls and the city centre are both about 20 minutes away from the campus.

The University requires all attending students to purchase a "group insurance" for about $11CAD. The function of this insurance was unclear to me. The courses require books and some cases to be purchased. You can try to find some of these materials online and save some money. The university gym was free, although some other exchange students had to pay a fee of $35CAD for access to the facilities.

Meeting other international students is easily done by participating events and joining WhatsApp and Facebook groups started at the beginning of the semester. Exchange students

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are frequently organizing parties at the residence halls where it is easy to get affiliated with the international community. MBA students on the other hand are harder to meet, apart from the ones taking the same course as you, as these students are older, usually employed on the side, or have a significantly bigger course load than the typical exchange student.

Another great way to meet people at the University is by participating in the various clubs. The best moment to get acquainted with the activities the clubs offer is during the club faire organized during the first weeks of the semester. On top of organizing activities, some clubs also offer other perks such as discounts from certain stores or services.

Personally, I took part in the Ski Club, which organizes at least two ski trips per semester to nearby ski resorts. These trips are usually during the weekends and feature accommodation, ski passes and bus transportation for affordable prices. The spots are limited so early morning queueing is the best way to join the trip, but cancellations usually happen so you can waitlist yourself too.

I would also recommend the Outdoor Club, especially if you are interested in trying out any outdoor activities during your exchange. The Outdoor Club is a vibrant group, which offers various hiking and snowshoeing activities for their members. On top of scheduled club activities, the club members often post their own planned trips for the other members to join. This offers an easy way for exchange students to tag along overcoming the transportation issue caused by the lack of a car in exchange for some gas money.

The University offers a mentor programme that groups local students with incoming exchange students, as well as a couple of activity nights during the year. The mentor program is operated on a voluntary basis, so the activity levels of mentors vary greatly with some mentors taking part in none of the activities. Still, mentors can usually offer valuable tips for students from abroad regarding sights to see around.

Apart from the reading week, most of your travelling will probably be done during the weekends. The only way to explore the various sights around Calgary is by a car. Therefore, rent a car, or find a friend that has one.

The Canadian Rockies is the primary place for hiking, skiing, climbing and canoeing near Calgary. The two major national parks are Jasper and Banff, that both offer beautiful mountains, waterfalls and canyons to experience. Various little towns can act as bases for your adventures, with the largest being the town of Banff that offers various restaurants and shops to see. You can also pop by various hot springs in the area between Alberta and British Columbia. These springs range from ones left to their natural state to more developed ones featuring more of a pool setting with lifeguards and loads of tourists.

Midway through the semester courses, there will be a week-long holiday called the reading

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week. This is a great time to plan a bigger trip before the increased workload during the end of the semester. During my reading week break, I rented a car with a bunch of other exchange students and we made a road trip to Vancouver and back. If you are planning to rent a car, make sure you are properly insured. The best way to make sure you are covered is to buy insurance for your rental through the rental agency. These businesses have varying insurance policies, and as majority of North Americans have car rentals insured through their credit card providers the situation can be unclear when you are renting a car as a foreigner. Usually the insurance prices are not included in the first quoted price on the companies' websites, and with some companies they are not displayed at all. You have to do some detective work to figure out the final prices of the rentals. I rented cars through Hertz and Avis, and was satisfied with the service. If you are under 25 years of age, you can also inquire for prices from Kilroy (kilroy.fi), that offers car rental services in Canada and USA with no additional fees for young customers.

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