The PLAIN UNTOLD Truth About Finding Funding For Graduate School In Canada - Not Found On Google!

foreign and today I want to talk about something that's very important very close to my heart and something I've gotten a lot of questions about today we're going to be talking about securing scholarship or funding for Graduate Studies in Canada so I'm going to be sharing tips hacks and strategies from my personal experience and from the experience of a lot of people that I've met in Canada who have gotten funding for their Graduate Studies okay so but before we go on and ask you to please um subscribe to my channel like this video and also share it okay um you can leave a comment but right now we don't have that option for comments but don't forget to subscribe and like so I've covered a lot of questions from people who want to come to Canada for Graduate Studies and that's for Masters as well as for PhD asking how they can get funding or scholarship I'm talking about a lot of the difficulties and challenges that they've been getting securing funding to study in Canada and that's very understandable it's actually not strange and that's why I decided that you know what I was going to do this video and talk about a few things that I've learned about getting this funding and scholarship and what you can do to get funding and scholarship in Canada now there's something that I must stress very importantly about getting funding and scholarship in Canada and that is that it is very very competitive yeah you know there are a lot of people who are wanting to come to Canada because unlike probably other locations like the us or the UK or Australia Canada offers a way to permanent residents for international students so it's getting very very competitive and then Canada doesn't have as much schools as in the USA for example the USA has like thousands of schools but Canada has very few schools maybe a couple of hundred schools and everybody all these thousands of people who are trying to come to Canada are looking for funding are coming to this same school so it's getting competitive and it's even getting more competitive as the year goes by it was competitive when I got here but it was not school but to do as it is now he must ask me because a lot more people are trying to come to Canada and from a lot of countries so it's getting more competitive um so you need to be strategic as if you need to know what you're doing you need to know those little hacks that can make you stand out to get the available funding and scholarships now first of all let's talk about the different kinds of funding and scholarships that are available there are actually three broad types of funding and scholarship available um you can get funding from organizations what is called like external funding so you can get funding from different organizations you can get funding from companies that are not related to the school you can even get funding from your country I met a lot of people here in in Canada who got funding from their governments like from Ghana for example their government gave them funding to come to Canada to study you can get funding from maybe your workplace and their total funding um there are different companies like oil companies that give funding so that is another kind of funding that you can actually use to come to Canada Nigeria also have the state fund um funding that they give to people who are lecturers also who have PhD that's a lot of funding that you can get to come to Canada the second kind of funding is the entrance scholarship now these are given by the university so sometimes they give it based on um they keeping based on merits they give you based on your scores some schools give it to everybody who they who they take you know who they admit actually got um entrance scholarship I think it's about the price the the scholarship price ranges I think mine was about maybe three thousand dollars and I think it's a one-time scholarship so it's not the type that you're going to be getting every year that's going to cover your tuition but that's one type of funding but the funding that a lot of people are interested in who are coming into Canada for Graduate Studies is the research funding or sometimes when people can call it research grants okay now this is the kind of funding that actually covers your tuition sometimes even part of your living expenses so for this kind of funding and you do not have to pay tuition okay so the school covers your tuition or the funding itself covers your tuition it's usually offered by the school so if you're going to the University of Toronto for example that school through the professor that you're working with will provide that funding that will cover your tuition cover part of your living expenses and it can come with teaching assistantship research assistantship whichever way they are usually organized and structured in different ways depending on the school that you're attending now one thing that you should note about research funding or research grants is that as the name connote it is usually available for research based programs that's why it's a research funding it's usually not available for cost-based programming yeah cost-based programs now research-based programs are programs where you would have to actually go and do research as part of your studies and it usually covers like programs under stem or Humanities social sciences right so stem Humanities and social sciences are usually the programs that have this research funding but things like business programs or MBA Accounting and all that they don't do a lot of research there yeah they don't have to go out in the field get data measure stuff in the lab no so they would usually not get research funding that doesn't mean they don't have some form of scholarship or funding they do but not research funding so they're not going to get the kind of research funding that we're talking about but they can get entrance scholarships or entrance grants or any other kind of funding but not research funding so usually research funding is for those who are actually coming to Canada to do research and Canada places like a lot of emphasis on research Canada loves research that's one thing I found out since I've been here and there's a lot of money available for research yeah sometimes the government gives research to the schools sometimes research is available to your professor but there is money for research okay now the question which is a million dollar question is now how do you get your own thoughts or this scholarship money that's flying everywhere now there are one of two things that you need to do in Canada you need to be strategic because if you are not strategic you're going to just be wasting your time probably waste money as well now one of the ways or maybe probably the major way that you get funding is that you need to connect to a prospective supervisor because usually your funding will be channeled through your professor or through your supervisor yeah so you have to actually get a supervisor who agrees to supervise your research and agrees to work with you and agrees that they would provide that funding for you and that is where the competition comes in because this providers are getting a lot a lot of emails yeah but I'm going to tell you what to do so that your own email is standing out and they will respond to you another thing I want to say is that you should focus on the u15 schools now that the u15 schools are schools in Canada that have a lot of money available for research grants yeah um sometimes these schools combine get maybe 80 of the research funding that's available to universities in Canada and I'm going to show you in a bit what these schools are these 15 schools that's the u15 when it comes to research so this goes on the screen now are the u15 schools they like I said get a lot of research so it's University of Alberta about Jose university university of mankill University of Ottawa University of Toronto University of law UBC University of Calgary University of Manitoba University of Montreal University of Saskatchewan Western University University of Waterloo Queen's University and McMaster University now these are the u15 schools that you should actually focus on now one thing I must say is that even though I've said you should concentrate on this course please don't don't save yourself short by concentrating only on this schools my school is not a u15 I went to Brock University it's not a u15 but I actually got funding from them okay so you can start with the u15 but please broaden your search okay broaden your search to include other all other schools they might not have as much research as the u15 but they also have funding available for for research studies now how do you start the first thing you need to do is that you need to search for schools that actually are doing your program now don't be lazy if you want to come to Canada and for Graduate Studies and you're looking for funding or scholarship it's a project you can't be lazy you can't expect somebody else to do it for you you actually have to do it yourself I'm going to tell you the process that I used the process that I've helped a lot of people to also use as well that has actually gotten them funding here in Canada there are a couple of people who are in Brock University with me they came after me they use the same method people in other schools as well it works okay now the first thing is that you need to know where you're searching okay now I've given you the u15 schools yeah that's where to start but you also need to search all the schools in Canada okay now I searched all the schools now there are not so many schools like I said initially so it's not a CV obviously researching forever but you need to actually dedicate time in your day for this so there's a DLI list uh designated learning Institute you must go to a DLI if you want to get your post graduation work permit after you finish studying so what you can do is that you can start looking at all the schools in the DLI one by one yeah to identify the schools that actually have the program that you're going for now one thing about the programs in Canada that I must mention out is that sometimes the names they are looking for is not actually the name that the program is called here yeah so you might you might have done something in like I don't know maybe project management and then they will have programs that are in little bits of project management are things that are specialized okay so that's why sometimes you need to look at if you're just going to type and programs that are in forestry or zoology or something you might not find a a master's degree in Zoology but I tell you that there are programs that are related to zoology maybe Fisheries maybe Water Resources maybe microbiology yeah you need to find a way to find a common ground with programs that are available okay another thing you can do is that you can identify research areas like I said that are within your field so you're not putting yourself in a box you're not saying because I give zoology why did botany I'm looking for a master's program importantly astrology you might see something that has to do with I don't know plant management or something let me tell you you can really as so long as you can tie it to your own botany or zoology you're good to go now once you have looked through those scores you will identify the programs that you're interested in and then when you do that you will identify the professors that are actually um that actually maybe professors in that area now the way it is is that in these schools have the program page they also have faculty members in the program page now a lot of times they also identify faculty members that are open for supervision okay now you have to identify a professor that has a research that is that is aligning with yours yeah so because you need to be reaching out to people who have research that's aligning with yours or you need to actually align your research with theirs because if you're pitching something to them that is not in their area they will be interested right if someone is coming to tell you something about plant biology but you're somebody who is the animal biology you probably not be interested except the person is can bring like a contemporary research topic that actually links the plant biology and animal biology in a very streets were a contemporary way then that might spark your interest you need to be able to spark the interest of these professors so how do you do that number one you have to read your papers okay now you identify a professor their Papers free their last two three or so papers go on Google Scholar and search for them um every day and read their research so that you understand from their last two or three papers what they are doing where the research is going if there's any contemporary research topic that you can preach to them that would interest them sometimes they'll also have personal blog Pages where they talk about their research what their interest is what they are hoping to be able to do in the future this is like Expo for you those are the things that will help you to be able to craft you know an email or research topic that will actually interest them now there are some programs some research programs where the school will say don't bother to contact the supervisor who attach you to supervisor when you get admitted now that is fine all well and goodbye I also tell people who I work with them despite what that school says that's their own you to try and still contact is supervisor you do know the reason why it's because they get a lot of students here and they can't take everybody research is limited spaces and labs are limited they can't take anybody they need to I mean if they have all these Doses and portfolios in front of them who are they going to choose if you have reached out to them before and they have an idea of I mean they've contacted we've contacted them they've communicated with you they have an idea of your research topic they think you're intelligent don't you think you're going to stand out when they start looking at all that portfolio because somebody is going to have to pick and choose and there has to be something that they are picking and choosing from so it does it goes beyond what your GPA is they also look at your research topic the supervisor also has a chance to be able to choose I think you know what I like this person's research or I don't like this person's research and make a decision yeah so even if they say don't reach out please do Reach Out now when you are reaching out to the supervisors you have to be strategic there are two parts to this number one you'll be organized and number two you make sure that the emails that you're sending out are on points now how do you stay organized you still organized usually I would say again an Excel sheet like when I was doing my I had this Excel sheet where I'll put the name of the school the program that I'm reaching out to the name of the professor the date I reach out to them the date I sent a reminder the date they came back to me or they didn't come back to me and then I'll have comments so it helps me to stay focused so that I'm not sending an email over and over to the same Professor or I'm not remembering whether they sent me a a response or not but I need to send a reminder it helps me to stay kind of focused okay so and you want to do that to stay focused now the second thing you need to do is that you need to be sending cool emails now the reason this is this is called emails is because you're sending emails to prospectives supervisors who don't know you like they don't know you from Adam or Eve you're reaching out to them oh that's why it's called emails yeah so um I mean these are prospective supervisors you're reaching out to them cold emails there needs to be a reason why they should respond to your email your email has to have a subject that attracts them it has to have and then when they actually go ahead and open the emails it has to be something that is attractive to them so your email must be very strategic it must be well written and it must sell you don't forget that this is this is the competition this is like going for a job interview you enter a job interview I don't know if that's happened to you you think that there will be two or three of you enter a job interview and they're like 10 15 people it's demoralizing because there are too many people I know that they just want to take one person who are they going to take you don't understand so you have to be very strategic you're not the only one writing to them there are so many people writing to you and then when you send your emails to them some other responsible they will not respond the things that you must make sure in your email your subject line which is something that is attractive because the subject line is usually that first thing that they see that's something that we're attractive now your subject line is attractive and then you open the email you have to tell them who you are your GPA don't forget to put that you need to pitch them in research topics don't just say I saw your paper and it was interesting which paper did you see it was interesting about it why did it make you reach out to them to say that you are pitching today what research topic do you want to do what time do you want to start what are you bringing to the table yeah this video is not about code image but I'm just giving you like three or four tips of which you should put in your email it should be concerned it shouldn't be too long it shouldn't be too short the information needs to be there and then you need to attach your your your CV or your resume and you need to attach your transcript as well so there needs to be a lot of information there for them to be able to make a decision and reach out back to you now uh like I said before some responses will not respond and if they respond uh that's a good thing if they don't respond after a week send a reminder okay don't be discouraged send a reminder now for us in respect to what you know should be your emails like I mentioned before if you want to see samples of that you can go there are samples about cold emails all over the the internet we have samples in the Canada Java system as well uh but don't go to the internet and then just copy some emails called emails and paste it and send to a professional because a lot of people who are not so smart to be doing that you don't want a professor to see your email and be like I saw something like this last week I saw something like this yesterday they will know that you just went to the internet and copied and pasted it it's not a good look yeah because you're reaching out to them for research which means that you're willing to actually do research do the work and then if you're copying and pasting it looks like as if you're not you're not serious yeah so a badly written email will probably jeopardize your chances and will not get a response okay so don't do that look at the samples we have inside the Canada Japan system uh if you if you have the Canada Japan system if you don't you can also look at samples you find on the internet but try and make it unique try and make it your own make your voice to come out to shine make it yours make it unique about you not just that it's something you just picked on the internet and copied and paste that means you're lazy yeah and nobody wants to work with anybody that is lazy so so you you might get a response from a professor saying you know what my lab is full uh of the city I'm not taking students at this point or they could say they could just say something that's negative I had somebody say to me I received a couple of negative emails I don't want to go into that but don't allow that to deter you yeah this is Warfare this is competition if somebody says uh and my love is full I'm not taking so that's fine move on to the next one all you need is just that one person to say yes I like your research and I'm going to supervise you one you just need one yeah some people do get more than one but if you're written to 50 for example I wrote to more than 50. I mean some people when I tell them 50 they're like 50 I've written to six and nobody has responded to me I'm like six if you need to only six I wrote to 50 professors or more I'm going to talk about this towards the end of the video of what I I went through in order how I wrote to them but I did write to a lot of professors now if they've came back to you and they tell you I'm not doing my love is I'm going to a sabbatical I'm going on holidays there's a lot of excuses they give you know what you're going to do you're going to ask for a referral thank them very much for even responding back to you because hey look at them will not even bother to respond the ones that respond thank them very very well and then ask for in referral it is very important I'm sorry for that I understand you're not going to taking um Prof you're not going to be taking students in your lab or you're going as a practical do you have any other Professor that you could refer me to hi the professor I finally worked with at Brock University I got her by referral that's why I'm saying this one the professor actually reached out to what's going on sabbatical and referred me to her yes and I think because I was referred from a senior colleague he was a senior colleague of hers you know she it was it opened the door for her sort of you know look at my proposal a bit more and then we got talking so ask for referral okay um and then if you've sent emails to all the professors and they are not reaching out to you because I get people complaining that all the professors are reaching out the ones that are reaching out that negative you can reach out to The Graduate coordinator of that school okay um all the programs usually have a graduate coordinator which she's like the person that's actually in charge of graduate school you can reach out to them I don't know if they will have a solution but I've had stories of people who have reached out to graduate coordinators and they've been able to probably recommend someone those grading coordinators are also professors to look at your research and take you themselves so they might give you an advice or tell you go to the school or reach out to this person um we're not living any chances okay so contact The Graduate supervisor send reminders to professors who have not responded to you for example send a reminders every week and then somebody I met who told me that she wasn't getting reminders and she actually looked for the phone number of the professor called him followed away from Nigeria to Canada that doesn't happen because she said she spent a lot of time on the phone to this man there were two of them the first one she spent a lot of time speaking to did not even take her at the end of the day she spent a lot of money but the second one because of her persistence instead of like okay you know what I'm going to look at your at your proposal look at your email he did and that is the person she's working with today she would not give up I mean she had been refused before she was trying to get a supervisor it was taking too long she had to reach out to them by phone so that's the kind of passionate spirit that you need for this so let's say at the end of the day the professor has read your email he likes it and then he or she likes it and reaches out to you and say you know what I like it I want to talk a bit more can we arrange like a zoom meeting or a Skype meeting used to be Skype or Zoom meeting these days then a lot of people start shaking what are they not going to ask me what am I going to say oh my God this is the Moment of Truth For You someone who wants to have a meeting with you if you mess this up then I mean you're not going to forgive yourself so at this point you would have read their papers if you haven't read your paper so you've forgotten what's in every person can get their latest papers and read it very well um I even went to the point of reading about my professor's personal life like her family there's not a lot of information sometimes so far very private but as much information as you can get about this person in terms of hobbies in terms of what they like to do go to their Facebook page search for them on Twitter I'm just getting a little bit off what they are because by the time you're having a conversation with them you also want to chip in a little bit of personal things and you want to be talking about the right things you don't want to talk about something nice probably alien to what they don't alien to them if it's something they don't like which is obvious and they'll think that if this person had Googled me they would have seen this yeah you don't want to put them off like that um and then when you do have that conversation with them you want to sound smart please I beg you you want to sound smart if you're in a country where Nepal gives problem where there's electricity problem make sure that you're connected to a good internet and you have good light so so that your meeting is not interrupted for anything your life depends on it yeah your future depends on it your other Cinema depends on it so make sure that you have good internet I've had all sorts of horror stories I can't go into the horror stories of NEPA taking life for those in Nigeria horror stories of Internet disturbing and then the meeting couldn't go on also so make sure that none of that is happening you are perfectly prepared in the jackpot system we have tips for interviews with professors what you need to say to them questions you can ask them how you can prepare these all are taught inside the Java system now one thing you need to be also showing the professor when you reach out to them by Cold email and when eventually they supervise you and eventually they reach out to you for a call and these things you can also put in your CV on your resume is your experience you need to show that you're interested in that research area you don't have to have written a paper or have a research paper or publication in that area no but sure by maybe taking all these free courses when I was coming here to Canada just if I can I took all these free courses I went to redeeming I went to all these courses where I could get some I paid as little as ten dollars but it showed that I was interested in this research topic I kept Gathering little certificates here and there joining one organization or the other I put all that in my CV to make it look like this is something that I I understand so that by the time they are reaching out to you and they are looking through your resume they are impressed already you are there to wow them up because you're not the only one they are talking with you're probably going to also talk to a couple other people depending on their schedule and maybe their interests some of them can only take a few people they can only take one or two people so they're going to only be taking the people that actually impress them and you want to impress them this is the only way that you will get this this self responding you want to try to impress them so when they finally reach out to you by um when they finally reach out to you by email they're going to be asking questions about your research asking questions about their own research wanting to know why you chose them speak intelligently if you have to read all their papers like I said before read their papers understand their research they have like come up with a contemporary or interesting angles to their research interesting angles that will interest them you can connect their research with something that is happening uh recently maybe something like uh recently like covered um this thing happening recently uh recently it's contemporary they like all these things that will you know make their own research stands out because the professors as well research is like the backbone of what they are doing they have to be putting out papers they have to stay relevant and all that so if they see a student who is hot so cha-cha and then you you show yourself to be intelligent they will be interested because like I've said before and I'm saying again this is competition um so when you finally are able to reach um have that meeting with them be forecast have questions that you're going to ask them two or three questions to ask them uh be interested smile ask those questions and sound intelligent I'm telling you if you do well that is it you just need that one person to say yes I will supervise you and that is it your life has changed you have a great opportunity to come to Canada so like I said before what you need to do is I'll be choosing a program uh look through all the schools in the DLI you have to connect to every school professors in every school that actually has your program or something related to your program you don't want to limit it to five or six professors you don't want to limit it to five or six schools try the u15 and then every other school in all the other provinces in the airline is reach out to them now by the time we find this professors list them have your research research Excel sheet list out their names list out their emails restart their research topic take time to read their papers one or two of their papers okay so that you can understand their papers understand what their research topic is come up with the research that you put in your email you're not sending the same email to all of them don't forget to they're sending an email that actually matches their own research topic so don't have one template and say copy and paste you know work don't do that okay um you're reaching out to them they have that code email they reach out to you and say I'm not taking students thank them very much ask Barrel if they reach out and they're interested and they want to set up the Skype or a zoom meeting then you got to prepare for that read their papers have intelligent questions to ask and you're good to go okay now the the um the last but not the least I don't I don't want the video to be too long that's why I'm trying to like just talk about the important things the last but not the least is that you need to pray for grace okay prayer is very important like this is not something you're going to do by your own power remember when I talked about that when I when I was doing my own I like I was working I was a mother I was a wife I was working I lived in Lagos so that means I would drive through Lagos traffic come home maybe by eight or so make sure my children are eating and when everybody has slept say 10 o'clock I will start my research I will do that till about midnight and the next day I'm waking up by five driving Lagos traffic again I did that consistently for about a month gathered all their emails gathered their research copy every day I was reading more research paper or the other some of them I don't have to understand what's in the research papers but I'll read it and make notes and based on that I will construct my email and reach out to professors they were getting back to me some were saying no but I'm telling you like five people were interested and I had meetings with them and eventually two people on Sunday um offered me um offered me that funding I'm going to show you the funding that I got from Brooklyn I eventually accept so this is the research that this is the funding that I got from Brock University um I was a two-year master of sustainability program and you can see funding for year one it was 27 000 it's a lot of money because my my tuition at the time was about 22.22 000 I think so there was that extra 5 000 that I could do anything I wanted with and I also got got research assistantship teaching assistantship it also comes with research and teaching assistantship which means you'll be teaching doing research and getting paid for that okay and I know a lot of people who are not funding even more than me they have funding in their 30 000 40 000 funding PhD students also get funding Master students get funding so it is two-way pool even these days people are still getting this funding but you need to know that it is competition yeah you need to be strategic you need to have something that makes you stand out you need to pray for grace it is Grace it is favor when I started sending those uh my emails see how hard I was working every day two hours I'll read papers I will construct email you know and at first when they started refusing me and saying I would cry like I would and cry and I say God um I become good I'm a great student like I have very good results I have great prospects I can't see me see it it's one person see my prospects see the prospect that I have seen it they were refusing me I've cried almost every day but I didn't stop my day I will cry I will clean my eye the next day so I knew that this thing my life depends on this thing I need to get this funding um I need to get this admission and I wanted the admission funding um and God sort of saw my effort he saw what I was doing and then I reached out to the professor one day I got a response and he said he was going on sabbatical but my research will fit very well with this person I forwarded my email to them my dear that is how I started working with this professor she called me we had a discussion it was beautiful we bonded immediately talked about our hobby so of course I had Googled her checks everything our family I knew her papers I read her papers no but I said we're going to have that meeting I read all her papers recent papers I knew her research in and out so when she was asking me what I wanted to do everything I was telling her was aligned with what she wanted to do she was very excited yeah uh I also had refused I also had a couple of professors who were really rude in the way they refused me it broke my heart but you know all of those things were now water under the bridge by the time this particular professor said you know what I like you and I will supervise you just do your sop I put my name there you know she even told me to do the SOP I sent to her she reviewed it sent it back to me with corrections I'm not even applied though with corrections you know and then I submitted she was the one that still came back to tell me that I have been accepted by The Graduate School she told me even before the school told me so that's how the favor and by the time I got to the school you know she was like a guardian angel she cared for me she would opportunities for funding she made sure any funding that is anywhere in that school she was getting it yeah so I mean and it was just Grace like I'm not special I wasn't like a special child of God or do anything but I knew that I needed I needed God's favor I called on God he gets why you call God you know pray and fast about it you need Grace you just need that that's one Professor forget about all the laws you're getting might be getting lows at this point but that's one Professor is all you need and if you need step-by-step guide you know someone who actually review your emails probably review your Sops and tell you what to do join you and also you know looking for these programs and all uh you can get the Niger to Canada Japan system then I just kind of that classify my signature program it's a step-by-step guide that holds you by the hand from getting admission uh teaches you about sending this code emails getting funding and then at the end they're also preparing for visa application submitting your visa for yourself or together with your family we've helped hundreds of people I was saying it for free before I was maybe I came to Canada I started helping people I mean anybody I come my friend be like do this do this dude there's some people didn't listen at that time but they are listening now and it's getting more competitive so the Nigeria to Canada Japan system will help you if you need a step-by-step guide um and and that's thank you very much I hope that this video was really valuable for those who are coming to graduate school and are looking for funding and scholarship please like And subscribe to this uh to my channel like the video I share lots of useful stuff I also share his food stuff on Instagram and Twitter my handles on those both of those um one of those places is she speaks at Shea speaks on Twitter actually speaks and on Instagram at Chase speaks so I'm so glad that you're here with me I hope that you join us in Elijah to Canada Japan system as well and I'm going to try and do another video we're talking we're talking more about this code emails what to write in the code emails how to construct your Sops at the end of the day so that you can get admission into universities in Canada that actually offer funding and scholarship so thank you very much I'm wishing you the very best in your Canada studies and I hope it really goes well with you uh don't forget subscribe to this channel like it uh and then I'm going to see you in the next video