Inflation & high dollar exchange rates added to concerns with Budgeting during the first year at X

Original author: Madeeha Dala (she/ her)

Editor: X Helping Hands

This photo was taken on September 1, 2022. Copyright @art_nouveau___

I am an international student from the beautiful islands of Mauritius. I arrived in Antigonish during the fall of 2018 and recently graduated this spring in the Bachelor of Computer Science. Not to mention, but I finally got the X- Ring, that I still wear every day. As an international student, I did have some experiences with finding a room to rent and budgeting. Inflation and high dollar exchange rates added to concerns with Budgeting during the first year of my study at X. Further, Covid added to another stressor, at the time when the province went into lockdown and it was hard to find a place to rent, especially during the summers of 2020. However, I would always appreciate the help I got from the housing authorities at StFX during Covid, which allowed me, and other international students like me, who were not able to go back to their home country, to stay on campus.

Further, trying to adjust to the new country, like any other international student, I would also mentally convert the price of the products while buying them, and try to save as much money as I could. However, as a learning from the past four years of being in this country, I could understand that as Canada offers a high wage rate compared to my country, so is the standard of living in this country, and hence, it did not seem right to compare the products or the cost of living between these two very different countries.

Although I graduated in May, it was still really hard to find an affordable apartment and I had to look over searching websites like Kijiji, Facebook pages, and ask my friends to help me find a place. As a piece of suggestion to the incoming students at X would be to connect to the people of the town and know more about it along with the province, prior to travelling. Join the Internationals@STFX Facebook page to develop connections with the current students at StFX and the excellent staff at the office of internalization (which is at the first floor of Nicolson Tower on campus). These conversations would help you to know more about the school and get you ready with almost everything you may need in and before coming to Antigonish. As current students at X if you are planning to stay off campus, always try searching for rooms/ apartments at least one year before the move in date, as places to rent fill up pretty fast and you won’t likely want to end up renting expensive apartments. As immigrants in this country, don’t be shy to ask for help.