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Hello, everyone! I am Haihan Xie, an undergraduate of the school of statistics in grade 2015. I was especially honored to participate in the overseas exchange program for outstanding students when I was a senior. As a result, I spent eight months at the University of Regina in Canada.During my exchange period, I took six courses, joined the club of the school and actively participated in the outdoor activities organized by the study abroad department.The following are my gains from these two semesters.

The fall semester began on September 4, 2018.In order to adapt to the life in Canada in advance, two junior students and I arrived a week early. Due to the high cost of school accommodation, we rented a house from a local Chinese landlord. I remember that we arrived at Regina airport after 11 PM, so the landlord picked us up and prepared some snacks for us. I think if it is the first time for someone to go abroad and the plane arrives at the local time late, you should contact some local Chinese for help, otherwise you will feel flustered due to the language barrier. During the rest of the week, the landlord helped us get our bank cards, phone cards, ID cards and health cards. Health card is very important for students studying in Canada. As we all know, it costs a lot to see a doctor in Canada, but you can do that for free with a health card. Finally, with the help of the landlord, we got familiar with the new environment quickly.

Before coming to the university, I have contacted the academic instructor by email and selected three courses under the guidance of him. For the fall semester, I registered Linear Statistical Models, Vector Calculus and Translation. I feel each course has different functions. For instance, Linear Statistical Model is a specialized course of statistics. This course not only has normal teaching time, but also includes weekly laboratory course. In the lab, the professor will guide you to analyze the actual data and cases with the commonly used statistical software, R or SAS. The practice experience has effectively deepened my understanding of relevant knowledge points. Sometimes, I could understand the parts that I was confused with in class after taking lab courses. What’s more, Vector Calculus is a course of mathematics department. In-depth study of this course has consolidated my mathematical theory and calculation basis. Besides, Translation helps me master more national standard translation, translation skills and methods, which helps improve my English level.

For my winter semester, I registered Survival Analysis, Stat Learning & Predict Models and Translation II. After the first semester, I has been able to participate in professor's classes with ease.  Survival Analysis mainly teaches some statistical knowledge applied in the fields of engineering and biological statistics, such as survival function, hazard function, truncated data and life table, and I have not learned this knowledge in JUFE. Although it will be a little bit difficult to learn this, it is also a good harvest for me to master more methods related to biological statistics.Statistical machine learning is another fantastic course, in which we can carefully compare the advantages and disadvantages of the linear and nonlinear statistical models. From this course, I know how to use cross validation or bootstrap to choose optimal parameters, and how to shrink coefficient of linear statistical models in order to reduce the variance and so on. Besides, this course is also equipped with weekly laboratory time. The teaching method makes the boring knowledge points closer to life and easier to understand.

The study abroad department of U of R often organizes some wonderful trips and activities for exchange student.From the BBQ at the beginning, to take us to other cities in Saskatchewan for one-day tour and join the famous hockey game, skating, bowling, self-defense and yoga classes, all these show the teachers' concern for exchange students.These activities can help students from other countries quickly adapt to local life, make more friends and learn about local lifestyles. Therefore, taking part in some outdoor activities is a good way to broaden horizon and increase the knowledge I cannot gain in classes.

The experience of these eight months has great significance, affecting my way of doing things and my perspective on things. Besides the exchange opportunity offered by JUFE, I am also very grateful to my roommates who came out from the same project with me. After all, if one goes abroad alone, homesickness and loneliness are inevitable. However, their company enables me to have partners to study, cook and play together. During the midterm of final week, we would spend a whole day studying at library. Moreover, every week, we would go to the supermarket by bus to purchase food. Every Chinese festival, such as Spring Festival or Mid-Autumn festival, we will have a hotpot night and cook various kinds of food to celebrate.

Although Regina, where I live, is rated as the second coldest city in Canada and the location is relatively remote, it is really a good place where people can calm down and study. People there are very friendly and do not give you the feeling of being an alien, nor do they discriminate against you. Canada is a country of immigrants, so the culture will be diversified. People will talk about the lifestyles of different countries, the food and entertainment modes of different countries, so that international students can feel warm.

Finally, I would like to thank JUFE and China Scholarship Council for providing me with an unforgettable exchange experience at the University of Regina.

                                                  文/谢海涵 编辑/谭育华