Month: January 2023

When thinking of the “college experience”, more than likely, the first thing that comes to mind is all of the traditional parts of college. A dorm room to decorate and make one’s own, a roommate to seemingly love or hate with no in-between, a variety of new classes and experiences, and new friends. One non-traditional part of the college experience that may not typically be considered is studying in a completely different country. Students have many options when it comes to studying abroad. Maybe they are interested in studying abroad but are not quite ready to commit for more than a couple of weeks. If that is the case, then students may want to take advantage of the Faculty-Student Academic Trips (FSAT), which last no more than two weeks. There are many situations that may come into play when making a choice on what program is the best option for any given student and their circumstances, and that is what the Study Abroad Office is available to help with. While time comes into play, location is another obvious factor. Students choosing to study abroad would obviously want to spend time in a location that is intriguing and exciting. According to Janet Pasco, coordinator of Administrative Services for Global Programs, the office announces the Faculty-Student Academic Trips (FSAT) every spring for the following year. There will be three different FSAT trips taking place this year. This year’s FSAT trips will be to Greece, Israel and Costa Rica. For these trips, students will take a mini course in the spring and then travel to these locations in May. Students also travel every spring with their respective schools, for example, they will depart in early March for their 8-week program in Ireland. The locations for study abroad this semester are Paris, France; Grenoble, France; Seville, Spain; Valencia, Spain and Seoul, S. Korea. Money is also another factor that may potentially scare students away from studying abroad, but Pasco said that students should not let this steer them away from checking out the program. “There are so many options, including financial aid and scholarships that could help students pay for trips,” said Pasco. There are many factors that come into play while planning a trip abroad, but when it comes down to the planning process, students should know that the Study Abroad office can help with anything they may need throughout the process. If you are starting to think about going abroad, the Office of Global Programs encourages students to start planning early. College is all about new experiences, and studying abroad is a perfect way to experience new things, meet new people, and broaden your horizons. Go out of your comfort zone and try something new!

Want to earn some extra money while you study in Canada? Interested in gaining work experience before you graduate? Working in Canada as an international student can seem confusing. Don’t worry, here’s what you need to know! Your study permit has rules about working As an international student, you need a study permit to study in Canada. And your permit includes employment conditions. Here are some common rules: There are different rules for working on-campus and off-campus Got it? Great! Now, what are the some of the differences between working on-campus and off-campus? Working on-campus Working off-campus Help is always here ❗ It’s important to review all of the government regulations for working on-campus and off-campus. You should also check on any government updates to these policies, especially in the face of COVID-19. If you violate the conditions of your study permit, it could affect your student status, your chances of being approved for a study or work permit in the future and/or you may be asked to leave the country. Luckily, your school will be there to help you with any study permit or immigration-related issue. Make sure you take advantage of all your resources. You’re not in this alone! Most universities will have a dedicated service to help students search for jobs, prepare their resumés and practice for their interviews. Happy job hunting!

The International English Language Testing System (IELTS) is an emerald of all the standardized exams. It has always been a grail to target for the aspirants looking forward to foraying themselves in their stream of career and various subjective choices. However, if one wants one’s dream to cement, the IELTS exam is definitely not an area to be clement and demands intensive preparation. Thankfully, various IELTS online training institutes and coaching centres have made it quite facile for the aspirants today to entwine their preparation with an apt approach. IELTS exam is a screening test that one has to pass through to ensure their dexterity over the English language and communication. It assesses one’s command in encoding and deciphering the language. After all, communication is a vital vitamin for the nutrition of one’s social health, therefore, to make sure one doesn’t teeter over the language bar in an English-speaking community, the IELTS exam prances to the foreground. This exam comprises certain tasks that evaluate one’s prowess based on the IELTS band scores. The IELTS bands range from 0-9, 0 being the lowest score and 9 being the highest awarded to the expert users. Various IELTS band calculator and assessment facilities are available across different portals that might give a fair idea about one’s preparation level. Talking about the IELTS exam, there are two types: IELTS Academic Test: IELTS Academic Test is meant for the aspirants who seek admission to an international university of an English-speaking country for higher studies. It assesses one’s competence as far as learning English is concerned and ensures if an applicant would be able to survive in the university where the entire mode of teaching would be English. It includes vocabulary and terms that are commonly used in an academic ambience.  IELTS General Test: The IELTS General is suitable for those who are either looking forward to studying below a degree level or for employment in a particular English-speaking country. Even for immigrating to certain countries like Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the UK, this test is a prerequisite. It contains the usual English language contents that one would generally see in an everyday work environment and normal settings that could be easily prepared for by online or offline IELTS training, with IELTS online training gaining ground nowadays. However, how much one requires as far as band scores are concerned, depends upon the individual IELTS band calculator of respective universities or companies. The IELTS Academic and the IELTS General have a common test for Listening and Speaking tasks. However, Reading and Writing tasks are distinct as far as content is concerned. The Listening, Reading, and Writing sections of all IELTS tests are conducted on the same day without any breaks in between. However, the Speaking task could be conducted either a week before or after the test date, as may the preference of the test takers be.  The IELTS exam is of 2 hours 45 minutes duration:  Tasks in the IELTS Exam IELTS Listening: The IELTS Listening task comprises four recordings of native English speakers, for which the answers are to be written.  There are 40 questions for this task ranging from multiple-choice, matching, plan/map/diagram labeling, form/note/table/flow-chart/summary completion to sentence completion, and one mark is allotted for each question. There are 10 minutes to deliver the answers on the paper, and the recordings are of 30 minutes duration in total. The evaluators check the comprehensibility of the examinee and how well does the examinee understand the discussion. IELTS Reading: The IELTS Reading task is of 60 minutes and the number of questions asked is 40 and gauges the reading comprehension of the aspirants. Each IELTS academic and IELTS General Training has a similar format with a difference in the content of the questions asked.  IELTS Academic Reading In Academic Reading, three reading passages are given from books, journals, magazines, and newspapers written in a general context.  IELTS General Reading In General Reading, it comprises three sections. Section 1 and 2 may contain two or three short texts or several shorter texts, while the third section comprises one long text.  The questions for both Academic and General Training see a wide variety such as multiple-choice, identifying information, identifying the writer’s views/claims, matching information, matching headings, matching features, matching sentence endings, sentence completion, summary completion, note completion, table completion, flow-chart completion, diagram label completion and short-answer questions. IELTS Writing The IELTS Writing task is again 60 minutes with significant differences in IELTS Academic Writing and IELTS General Training Writing.  IELTS Academic Writing The IELTS Academic Writing comprises two tasks. The first task is majorly description-based, where the examinees have to describe or explain the data that is given in the question, for example, Pie charts, graphs, infographics, etc. It has to be written in around 150 words and should be completed within 20 minutes. The second task is somewhat more important than the first one and requires the test takers to present a viewpoint and propound their arguments regarding the topic of a discussion. It requires at least 250 words and ideally should be allotted 40 minutes for completion.  IELTS General Writing The General Writing Task, on the other hand, has two tasks, where the first task is writing a letter that could be informal, semi-formal, or formal depending upon the question in response to which the letter has to be written. It should be written in at least 150 words. The second task is an essay writing task where a test taker has to write an essay as per the topic. IELTS Speaking The speaking task of the IELTS exam is of 11-14 minutes. It consists of three parts: The IELTS would be starting with their IELTS online exams from early 2022, for which the calculated band scores would be provided within 3-5 days. Flexibility would be given for this and the examinees may take the test from anywhere.  Now that you have an overview of the IELTS exam, the most important thing is to prepare for it with diligence…