Profile: Tom Meijer, exchange student

It was his first week of classes at Kwantlen’s Richmond Campus, but he is no freshman. Tom Meijer, 21, is an exchange student from Rotterdam, Netherlands and in his third year of International Business studies.

Meijer is one of Kwantlen’s 34 exchange students in the fall 2010 semester. After this semester, he will be a student in the Netherlands again. His five classes here fit with his program at home, and the credits are transferable. He came to Vancouver because he wanted to do his exchange in an English-speaking country.

“I also think the culture here suits me. It’s quite liberal and open-minded — like me,” he said./p>

Meijer enjoyed his first days at Kwantlen. “I really like the small classes with around 20 students. This way it’s easy to engage with the instructor’s material.”

Class work and the style of teaching are quite similar to his school at home, Meijer said, although one difference is that the instructors here put more effort in engaging the students than they do in Rotterdam.

Being thousands of kilometres away from home doesn’t seem to bother him. Going abroad wasn’t a big decision.

“I chose my studies consciously and I knew that going abroad is part of my program. That’s what I wanted and I would be very disappointed if I would be staying at home now.”

Meijer said that leaving friends and family has been surprisingly easy. A few years back, he saw his brother gaining international experience and enjoying it. So he knew what was coming to him and — more important — he knew what the experience is worth.

At first, one needs courage to leave the comfort-zone of home, Meijer thinks. “If you do so, you try new things and you meet new people. You challenge yourself and become more.”

The new culture was at first awkward but he settled in quite fast and got used to it, he said.

His first day was a difficult one. Back then, he had to find a room and the place where he first stayed was still under construction. He couldn’t rest enough to get rid of his jetlag. So he went for a walk.

He discovered Vancouver bit by bit and he would recommend to everyone who is new to a city to explore it at first by foot at one’s own pace.

Especially at the beginning of an exchange, student’s social contacts to friends and family at home can help. “Writing e-mails and posting on Facebook is daily stuff,” he said. As well, once a week Meijer talks to his parents on Skype.

Although he will be away from home for five months, he’s not afraid to lose his connections to people at home. “My friends know I miss them, and I know they miss me. A couple of months won’t change anything.”

In most of his classes, Meijer is the only exchange student, which means a lot of new faces and acquaintances.

“People here are interested in who I am. But it’s mostly politeness and small talk. Everyone has their own life and their social circles,” he said.

Meijer wants to get to know the people here, but he thinks they aren’t easy to approach. He knows that it how acquaintances will perceive him depends on his attitude, and that he has to make the first step.

Every semester thousands of students like Meijer all around the world experience life, joy and adjusting abroad. But Europeans seem more likely to go abroad than Canadians. Numbers from Internationalization in education in the Netherlands from 2008/2009 show more than 40,000 Dutch students abroad. Data from the Association of University and Colleges in Canada’s from 2007 shows that there are roughly 18,000 Canadian students abroad in 2006/2007. (These numbers combine exchange and international students.)

Didar Grewal pushing hard for basketball success

If you want to find Didar Grewal, look no further then the gym at Kwantlen Polytechnic University’s Surrey campus.

This gym is home to the Kwantlen Eagles, who open their regular season campaign on Nov. 3 and Grewal is the newest shooting guard on the men’s basketball team. The 18-year-old Tamanawis graduate is entering his first season with the team and has great ambitions for this season.

“I work out six days a week,” Grewal said, “everyday except for Monday’s because I have three classes that day.”

Pushing himself physically is nothing new to Grewal. He has been playing basketball competitively since he was in Grade 6 and was never pushed by anyone to practice.

“Shooting around is for my own benefit, so I shoot all the time,” Grewal said.

“My high school coach Aman Heran has been a big influence on me. I go to him for advice and he has always pushed me hard.”

The hard work is paying off: Grewal is tall and athletic, the muscle in his arms, shoulders, chest and legs are well defined, and he barely breaks a sweat even after 20 minutes of shooting around.

The transition from high school basketball to college hoops is never easy for anyone, even a two-time winner of the male athlete of the year award at Tamanawis Secondary in Surrey.

“At a higher level the players are all good. It is the best players from every team in high school playing together,” Grewal said, “The tempo and speed are higher and players are stronger as well.”

The speed, strength and conditioning of the players was evident when Grewal played with the Kwantlen team against the Division 1 NCAA school Idaho State.

“It was a good experience for me and the team,” Grewal said. “They were faster and stronger then us.”

Grewal hopes that Kwantlen can become a stepping stone to a higher level of basketball. He is aiming to play in the CIS next year as a 19-year-old after only one season of playing college basketball.

Eagles aim for second straight provincial title

“There’s an expectation,” says Gordon Smith, the new head coach of the Kwantlen Eagles women’s soccer team.

As a new season gets under way for the team there are high expectations. Last season, the team used penalty shootouts to power their way to a provincial title and a bronze medal finish at the nationals, the first national medal of any kind for Kwantlen.

But with only seven players from that championship team returning, it isn’t going to be easy and youth will be the highlight of the new squad.

The biggest hole for the Eagles to fill will be the 24×8-foot net at their end of the field. Last year’s starting goalkeeper, Amelia Ng, was the not only the team’s MVP, but also the provincial tournament’s MVP for her performance in the playoffs.

Filling Ng’s net will be new rookie recruit, Melina Gomez.

“I love it. Mo’s [Monivoi Vataiki] a good keeper, so I’m excited to be starting. I just have to keep practising hard and hopefully I’ll keep the starting position.”

Smith said they have challenged the other keepers to battle hard for the starting role but Gomez should continue to start for now.

Gomez looks to be just one part of the new youth movement for the team, which has 10 rookies on the roster. But, like any good team, the Eagles will rely heavily on their veterans to guide the team. That starts with their captain, defender Brittany McNeill, who looks to play an even larger role with the team this year.

“The returning players have a great work ethic and a great attitude and they want to win,” said Assistant Coach Joan McEachern, who has been with the team since 2003.

Both McEachern and Smith are confident of the team’s chances of success this year but are quick to point out that it will be no easy task, as there are a lot of good teams in the province.

“I was just thinking about that the other day: Who has repeated in the last four years? No one. It speaks volumes to the parity in the league,” said McEachern.

The last team to repeat as provincial champs was the Langara Falcons in ’06-’07. After becoming the first Kwantlen team to win a national medal, the Eagles are confident going into the ’10-’11 season.

“I think that everyone’s goal is to get to Nationals again… and see if we can catch lightning in a bottle again,” said Smith.

The price of getting in shape for back to school

After a summer full of barbecues and beer, it’s time for students to get back in shape.

But the question is where to go?

We asked 10 students at the Kwantlen Surrey campus where they most frequently went to for exercise, and if they used Kwantlen’s exercise facilities. (Kwantlen has a yoga studio at the Richmond campus and a gymnasium and fitness centre at the Surrey campus.)

Out of the 10 people questioned, only one uses Kwantlen’s facilities.

“If [Kwantlen’s recreational facilities] were included in the student fees, then I’d definitely go, but if it’s not then I’ll figure out some other way that’s much cheaper,” Lindsey Neill, a general arts student at Kwantlen, said.

Kwantlen charges students (taxes included) $5.25 for drop-in sessions at the gym, $15.96 for a month pass, $42.56 for a three-month pass, or $127.68 for an annual pass.

In comparison, student rates at the Walnut Grove Community Centre in Langley (taxes not included) are $3.12 for drop-in, $34.43 for a one-month pass and $93.90 for a three-month pass. There’s no student discount for the centre’s $369.75 one-year pass.

Manjot Thyar, a business management student at Kwantlen, doesn’t think students should pay to use the gym at Kwantlen because “we are already paying for tuition and we don’t have a lot of money. We take out student loans and we have to work and whatnot.”

Despite the expenses that kinds of exercise demand, some students are still willing to pay. David Lee, a student taking ESL courses at Kwantlen, is involved in Kendo, which is a martial art.

“It’s pretty expensive, though,” Lee said. “It’s $300 a month.”

Credit card change inconveniences students

Kwantlen students are no longer able to pay domestic student registration fees and tuition with credit cards.

That may been old news, as the change was announced on July 14 and came into effect on Aug. 3, but the effect the new policy had on Kwantlen students isn’t.

According to the university website, “The change is aimed at reducing operational costs without cutting services or programs for students. In fact, $250,000 expected from the savings will be put towards additional scholarships and bursaries for students this year.”

But the inconvenience of the payment change has increased the number of annoyed Kwantlen students.

“I was super last minute paying my tuition, and I had no idea we couldn’t pay with credit cards anymore, so my dad and I had to rush to the bank to pay cash at the campus before it closed,” said Florencia Caula, a second-year Fashion marketing student.

“I guess it was my fault for not having checked, but it also threw me off that Kwantlen didn’t accept certain debit cards any more, either. The point is, people rarely have cash to pay tuition; we’re students,” she said.

Lisa Niskasari, also a Fashion marketing student had the same experience.

“I heard about the credit card change on the news, but I didn’t know they weren’t allowing credit union’s either. So I had to do the same thing as Florencia and pay with a cheque at the registrar, on the cusp of the registration deadline.

“I get that they want to put the money towards scholarship and bursary, but honestly I wouldn’t have known that had I not looked into it after I nearly lost my spot this semester. Thankfully I can still use credit for books,” Caula said.

According to Robert Hensley from the Kwantlen registrar’s office, the payment change did not have a negative impact on fall registration; in fact registration numbers were up 3.3 per cent.

“We only had a small number of formal complaints from students about the payment change,” said Hensley. “The only change was an increase of students paying with debit and cheque.”

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