How to move to Canada: our story – Part 3
Let’s return to that fateful April day when the immigration consultant handed me a to-do list running to 20 A4 pages. Read the previous part of the story here
First task — evaluate my husband and I’s diplomas. I was the principal applicant for our family. However, a partner with a higher education is a good bonus, so I had to arrange the paperwork for both our diplomas.
The operation lasted more than six months and took a lot of energy. No matter how quickly we do what depends on us, the waiting time for a response will not be affected. And the specifics of communication with our government agencies made this challenge unforgettable.
In June we got an apostille - we confirmed that our diplomas were not from a metro crossing.
Then the documents had to be translated. But not independently, but in a translation agency with mandatory certification. In July, the diplomas flew to Canada. And only at the end of September the assessment with diplomas was sent back.
Having learned that, by Canadian standards, I can qualify for a master’s degree, I exhaled. Master's and bachelor's degrees differ greatly in points in the system where immigrants are registered. It would be very disappointing to spend so much effort, nerves, time and money on passing exams, and in the end discover that you do not reach the degree level.
By the way, the exams were second ✌🏻important task. While our diplomas were traveling around the world, I had to pass two languages - English and French. Honestly, I couldn’t approach them for a long time. I had to significantly change my lifestyle - wake up earlier, plan the day, learn to combine a small child with study... ⠀
What disciplined me? Probably my big goal, for the sake of which all this was started.
And now behind are hundreds of pages of textbooks, gigabytes of audio, notebooks covered from cover to cover, and several months without normal sleep. In May I take French, and a couple of months later I take English.
And... in total I still don’t get the passing grade...
How did it happen that the teacher of French and, for a moment, English screwed up so much, and how I still managed to hack the system - read in next article. ⠀