Intro
I had the opportunity to go on exchange to TU Delft from UWaterloo. Interestingly, there were a lack of people I found in the UWaterloo Engineering community who had a similar pathway and I found myself navigating the process somewhat alone. Hopefully, here's a guide to help navigate the process.
A note that with respect to this guide, I'll make the assumption that the reader is a Canadian Citizen as I'm not sure how the process varies for those who hold citizenship elsewhere. I make no guarantee that the advice below is correct or true for any given year.
Housing
If you have accepted your offer to do an exchange at TU Delft, have 6k EUR ready to wire. TU Delft will ask you to wire about this amount for visa purposes to demonstrate adequate proof of funds. Importantly, tied to arranging proof of funds is access to a "TU Delft Housing Service." Housing in The Netherlands is hard to come by, and searching for one is hard (though not impossible) for someone who will be internationally based.
The housing platform offers access to the equivalent of a 3rd-party Uni Residence service; paying your fee earlier gives you earlier access to the platform so you can get a spot before they run out. Don't skimp on this, pay the fee as soon as you receive the email via a wire transfer, and use the TU Delft housing service.
There were a few popular residences on this housing service - as can be imagined, international students were concentrated in these areas, making living quite fun.
Michiel de Ruyterweg is probably the best one through DUWO; it's a literal 1-minute bike ride from campus or 4 minutes to the city centre, and the building is renovated, making it nice and modern.
Picking Courses
This is specific to UWaterloo Mechatronics Engineering; I attached my course list below
A note that we were initially going to take TPM015 as our list A CSE, but we found out the course schedule wouldn't line up, so we opted to take TPM002A. 3B Tron has 6 courses, but we could only get 5 courses approved for our exchange. I took a CSE over a co-op term; my friend did a CSE online from Waterloo.
Insurance
Non-Dutch students are required to maintain insurance for the duration of their stay in The Netherlands - this site has the relevant information https://www.tudelft.nl/en/education/practical-matters/insurance-and-healthcare.
BSN
Every Dutch Resident is required to register in the municipality they live in to get their Burgerservice Number (BSN). This number allows you to open your bank account and access a few other Dutch services. Book an appointment with the municipality of residence and try to open this as soon as you arrive to make it hassle-free.
Bank Account
Established Dutch businesses, for the most part, accept Mastercard and Visa. However, smaller places instead usually only accept Maestro, which is a common service offered by Dutch banks. You'll also need a Dutch Bank to get the refund from the proof of payment. ABN-AMRO or ING bank were the ones my friends from Waterloo and I used, both of which could be opened online with a residence permit and BSN.
NS Transit Card
After a Dutch bank account has been acquired, a transit card with NS can be opened which can give you discounted fares on the train.
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