Elevating the international student experience

“We will engage students from the moment they arrive at Concordia,” states the John Molson School of Business’ strategic plan, which list enhancing the integration of international students at JMSB as one of its objectives.

At the beginning of September, 55 undergraduate students, 55 graduate students and 30 parents participated in an orientation event specifically designed to meet that objective. The multi-day affair was organized as part of JMSB LIFE – an initiative focused on international student integration.

“In order to determine exactly what it is that international students want in terms of guidance, we sent out a survey to over 1,000 international students,” says Germaine Chan, JMSB’s director of finance and budgets. “We got a 18% response rate which is tremendous. This information will help us improve our services to international students and develop new ones.  It will also allow us to set a base line and measure our improvement over time.”

Chan is JMSB LIFE’s project lead. She and her team ran six focus group sessions with the goal of getting a more detailed picture of international student needs.

“In order to integrate international students into the JMSB family we need to bring in the Canadian students to help them see the benefits of developing cross-cultural relationships,” says Chan. To this end, the organizing team implemented a buddy system pairing international students with Canadian counterparts for the duration of the term.

Undergraduate finance students Alexa Chang and Christian Toumie volunteered to act as buddies. “It’s very exciting,” says Chang, “I’m really looking forward to developing the relationships that I’ve started at these opening sessions.” Toumie echoes Chang’s enthusiasm. “International students contribute so much to the fabric of the school,” he says. “We can help them with integration but we can also learn a lot from them.”

Chan says that the feedback provided on the evaluation forms that were circulated to participants was overwhelmingly positive. “The event was incredibly well organized,” read one of the responses. “It relieved a lot of stress around starting my new life in Montreal.”

“It was a great opportunity for me to meet my fellow students as well as students from other graduate programs,” says Florian Hums who is pursuing an MSc in Management. “I made new friends and learned a lot about all the opportunities and resources at the John Molson School of Business.”

"My first week in Montreal was very intimidating as it happened to be my first in Canada as well. But the orientation eased things out for me,” says Tanvi Kadukar a Graduate Diploma in Business Administration student from India. “I appreciated the friendly and casual environment, and the networking cocktail in the evening was a brilliant! I got to speak to some career advisors as well as a few JMSB professors."

The JMSB LIFE team has more activities planned for the upcoming months including cultural and social event outings, community service projects and business networking events.

Another orientation session for international students beginning their studies in the winter term will be held on January 4 and 5.