Hi.

I just got an admit for MBA at McMaster and I am planning to apply for VISA soon.

I've got a few questions -

1. Do we need to book a flight ticket before we apply for a student VISA
2. How is Burlington as a city to stay in?
3. How is McMaster a university?
4. How can I contact potential students who may be travelling or may have admits in McMaster and are part of this site?
5. Any suggestions on a nice but reasonable priced flight.

I am new to this site, joined since it came highly recommended from a friend.

Sorry if this post repeats any questions, but I did not really find what I was looking for, so posted this.

Hope to get a reply and some information regarding the same soon.

Thanks.
Cheers.
Devang Desai.

Hello Dev:
Let me answer a few answers that I know.
Burlington is a retirement city. Cost of living is high, no jobs and they donot like Desi's much (so discrimination will be there). Better stay in Hamilton which is around 5 kms away only. In 2013, I expect that Hamilton would ne having very good transit systems to take you from Burlington to Hamilton.
is your MBA studio going to be in Burlington?
McMaster is famous for medicine. Other people can help. I assume that MBA will also be a nice one.
You will have to visit the MBA website and connect with the alumini or the foreign dept. to make friends. Please donot discriminate among people and prefer Desi.
Get the cheapest flight to Canada. your travel agent may help. Try Aeroflot. For eg. if your city is Agra, take a train to Delhi and get a flight from there.
Peace by Murali

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I am a Gents and not a Ladies.

Thanks for the reply bro.

I have already booked my spot for the MBA program and yes it is in Burlington.
I am from Mumbai.
McMaster has a free transit bus from their Hamilton location to their Burlington location.
Pick up and drop and it is just for McMaster staff and students plus its free, so ya I will consider your suggestion of staying in Hamilton.
And yes I will make it a point to mingle with the foreign crowd as much as possible.

Thanks for the info, I'll take it into consideration, do let me know if you have any more info.

Cheers
Devang

Congratulations on getting your admission to McMaster.

Burlington is a great place to live. And it is NOT 5 kms away from Hamilton. You have google maps.. please check out. Burlington is definitely not a retirement city. The city is expanding on the north side..... hundreds of younger families moving in. Though, it is also not an university city unlike Hamilton so finding accommodation for a single person can be difficult though not impossible and maybe expensive than Hamilton. Check out listings on kijiji.

Airlines - why not try Jet Airways.. they would let you get 2 bags (23 kgs each)..

Hi Congratulations for your admit. I did my MBA from Queen’s University and I passed out in 2012 and my brother has done MS from Mcmaster University. I am currently based out of Toronto and I have lived in Hamilton for 5 months. I am from Mumbai as well. I will help out with the best I can.

See my responses below as well as additional details


1.Do we need to book a flight ticket before we apply for a student VISA
No it is recommended that you buy the ticket after getting the VISA.

2.How is Burlington as a city to stay in?
Burlington is a good place to live in. I have been to Mcmaster Campus at Burlington, it’s a nice place, accessible by GO Transit to Toronto which makes Job Networking easier.

3.How is McMaster a university?
McMaster is a very good university. The degroote school is pretty far from Hamilton Campus since this is in Burlington. If you are expecting a big university campus etc, the business school does not have it. This is situated in Industrial area of Burlington. Also as far as MBA is concerned, it is not the best of schools for MBA (Rotman, York, Queens, Ivey are top 4 bschools). However believe me it won’t make a huge difference, as long as you are smart enough and do your job networking and contact right kind of people.

4.How can I contact potential students who may be travelling or may have admits in McMaster and are part of this site?
I don’t know about that

5.Any suggestions on a nice but reasonable priced flight.
You have to do a search on different websites, one thing I would recommend is don’t travel by AIR INDIA..(I guess Toronto flights have been stopped). Travel by JET ..it is very good, it will be little expensive compared to other flights but it will allow 3 bags for students and it is awesome. I have travelled 6 times between Mumbai and Toronto and 2 times in Jet, 1 time in Air India, 1 time in Etihad, 1 time in Lufthansa, 1 time in British Airways. Jet Airways rocks. But British Airways is not bad too. I won’t recommend Etihad and Lufthansa. See the prices and decide for yourself

I have sent you a personal message with my email address and contact number, please feel free to call me/contact me on whatsapp/gtalk/etc.

Quote:

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Originally posted by Iceberg

Congratulations on getting your admission to McMaster.

Burlington is a great place to live. And it is NOT 5 kms away from Hamilton. You have google maps.. please check out. Burlington is definitely not a retirement city. The city is expanding on the north side..... hundreds of younger families moving in. Though, it is also not an university city unlike Hamilton so finding accommodation for a single person can be difficult though not impossible and maybe expensive than Hamilton. Check out listings on kijiji.

Airlines - why not try Jet Airways.. they would let you get 2 bags (23 kgs each)..

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Thanks Iceberg.

Yes I did look into it from Google maps and the two McMaster Centers are some 21 km apart.
And the other information too is valuable, thanks again for the post.
And yes, everyone is suggesting Jet Airways, even Vivek in the following reply, suggests Jet as a far better option compared to other airlines.


Thanks Vivek,

Very kind of you to offer help. But I did not receive any personal message of your contact details like you mentioned in the earlier message.


And just one more question guys,
Is it so, that any international student cannot work off campus even foe 20 hours a week for the first 6 months of his program in Canada.
Vivek since you have been an MBA student, I am sure you are aware of this piece of information, so please do reply if you can, and do message me your details, it would be great help to have a fellow student giving out tips and I can stay in touch via Whatsapp.


This definitely is a great site for newly moving student and thanks to the senior members for helping the juniors out, I am going to make it a point to stay on this site post my settling in and will help other students like me to have a smooth transition and sound advice.


Cheers

Devang Desai

Quote:

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Originally posted by DevD

Hi.

I just got an admit for MBA at McMaster and I am planning to apply for VISA soon.

I've got a few questions -

1. Do we need to book a flight ticket before we apply for a student VISA
2. How is Burlington as a city to stay in?
3. How is McMaster a university?
4. How can I contact potential students who may be traveling or may have admits in McMaster and are part of this site?
5. Any suggestions on a nice but reasonable priced flight.

I am new to this site, joined since it came highly recommended from a friend.

Sorry if this post repeats any questions, but I did not really find what I was looking for, so posted this.

Hope to get a reply and some information regarding the same soon.

Thanks.
Cheers.
Devang Desai.

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