Hello, I am Valessa Goncalves an international student from Brazil in my final year of Business Administration-Management concentration course. My journey at NSCC started in September 2018, I remember I was so excited and counting the days to start. Everything was different from what I experienced back in my home country, a student at Ivany campus the campus is huge, bright and beautiful, I remember to look through the windows and see the ocean and feel my heartbeat accelerate, yes I was feeling in a dream. 

I will be honest, time flies but I enjoyed every minute of my studies and learned as much as I could from my instructors, they have a lot of knowledge and experiences to share, you will feel that you have a lot to learn. Remember to connect with your faculties it is very important and makes friends, they will be your allies during this journey.

I never travel back home during my time at school, I was let’s say “adapted” with my long-distance skype life, that was the way I used to talk to my family and one day everything changed. Life was good, I was in the last term, we started to hear about a new virus and I thought “that is ok, they will find a medicine to deal with it”, and then it started to spread quickly, my friends and I started to take precaution.

Ok, everything under control, march break was just around de corner and the virus too. Because of a family situation, a last-minute surgery I decided to go back to my country and bought my flight tickets one week before my trip. My flight was March 12th and on March 11th WHO announced we were in the middle of a Pandemic. I had to ask friends for gloves and masks to be able to protect myself and “Lysol wipes” to sanitize the airplane seats and bathroom. I could not get the virus because my family member was in a sensitive situation.

I travelled, everything was well, and I had planned to come back on March 23rd but on March 20th the Prime Minister closed the borders and I could not travel anymore. That was stressful, I could not think about anything else, I thought my dreams were all done. But NSCC was there, to support me and many other students in the same situation. On March 25th I took the plane back to Halifax and my self-isolation of 14 days started.

I documented every single day, with a lot of cooking, dancing, exercising and skype calls. Calls with my family, friends, support from NSCC and meetings with my International Student Ambassador’s buddies was and still is one of the best ways to keep me up and going along with this situation.  Remember NSCC is more than your college, it is part of your life and it is a community that you can count on.

This will be an amazing experience for you as it was for me!

Valessa Goncalves

Business Administration Student

Ivanyy Campus

Brazil