Canada

When I first came to University we were handed a welcome booklet and I thought when I get home I am going to read it from cover to cover – so I did… and there in the small print – was written – we also do exchanges to Europe and the Americas – and I thought – I am going to explore that. So I did. I found out when to apply which was the end of the first year and then I badgered my tutor, Amanda, to look into it. At first she was reluctant – no other Theatre Arts student had ever done an exchange before – but I persisted and she got in touch with the Exchange Officer and then yes, I was eligible to go. They have to check you see, to see if you can still get the credits to achieve your degree. I took the opportunity excitedly, but then because of Covid I found out that I couldn’t go out there but then they offered me a “Remote Exchange,” where I could still do the Exchange but remotely. I just couldn’t miss the opportunity, remote or not I just wanted to do Canada.

As I am not very technical at all but I have learned as I have gone along, the Universities have made working remotely through Covid very easy. Even the play we did for Derby Theatre, Drink the Mercuury, was all done remotely, we had to all record ourselves and send that in, then someone in I.T., put it all together for one performance. But I actually preferred this, as I could put my lines at the top of the video camera – perfect! No remembering lines, which believe me when you are menopausal – you can’t hardly remember your own name – let alone lines! Even studying remotely was fun, when I wasn’t needed in a lecture – I could turn my camera off and clean my room! We could sit in a lecture with your pyjamas bottoms on – which we all admitted to at Canada. Canada was such fun – even remotely – they all loved my accent.

Funnily enough, there was a great difference I found between European and American students. The Canadian students were really outgoing and you couldn’t get a word in edgeways whereas the European and English students are much more quiet and reserved. We had such fun at Canada, one night our teacher went out of the zoom class for 10 minutes and one student piped up … “let’s do a surprise for when Tim gets back!” So, it was decided that we all do the YMCA dance when he returned. It was magical… YMCA was blasting out and we were all dancing away – the lecturer was bowled over – I will never forget that. It was this lesson actually that was on at 11pm at night as there is a time difference with Canada… but I actually fell asleep not once but twice! I had to explain to my tutor as I was the only one left in the room for hours after the lecture – I woke up at about 1am still signed into the lecture! But I actually came out with top marks for this module – I got 80%! I achieved really good marks at Canada – whch really bumped up my grades over here.

It is really good how you do your degree out there – you actually build your own degree and pick whatever modules that you find interesting. My modules were great – I did Voice to Power Activism – which was all about Capitalism, I did Speech Communication to Inform – which is all about speaking publicly, then theatre performance and Theatre Design. Also each lecturer has an assigned assistant student to be a contact for the students and you can ask them any questions that you don’t want to bother your lecturer with and if you do this role they called it a TA – you get bonus points to your degree. There were also extra seminars to attend and if you attended you got bonus marks for your degree. I am now considering a Masters in Canada – the Exchange Officer has already given me a “thumbs up,” on this. Halls of residence in Canada at 56 now there’s a story, I have always wanted to see Niagra Falls. Watch this space!