I chose Nanyang Technological University (NTU) because it is a recognized school with a good reputation. NTU has done well in rankings for many years and their business school was highly recommended by QUT Business School. In general, Singaporean universities are known for the high quality of their staff and facilities. Furthermore, I wanted to study in a country with good opportunities for travelling. It is not that much travelling to do within Singapore, but its location is great; in the middle of South-East Asia.
I am Norwegian and had been studying in Australia for two years before I went on exchange. Therefore, I was familiar with the feelings related to going oversees. Nevertheless, my first impression of Singapore was quite different than my first impression of Australia. Singapore is extremely humid so I remember that arriving in pants and sweater was a bad choice. I also remember that I was very surprised about their accent. Singaporeans speak “Singlish”, which is English with an Asian accent. They speak very fast and have a tendency to skip words or part of words.
Singapore is a relatively small country with a little more than 5,5 million people. It takes approximately 1 hour to travel by MRT from one side of the country (NTU campus) to the other side (Changi Airport). The city is modern with interesting architecture and you can see that the country and the city are only 50 years old. You can basically find everything in Singapore; a hyper-modern financial district, Chinatown, Little India, Arab Street, beaches at Santosa, Jungle with monkeys etc.
I applied for accommodation at campus online. Approximately 50 per cent of the exchange students applying for a room get it. I shared my room with another exchange student, but I know that a lot of the other exchange students shared room with local students. Our room was relatively new and we each had a bed, a desk, a chair and a closet. Internet is included in the room. It is air-condition in some of the rooms. The cost of using air-condition comes on top of the rent. As mentioned above, Singapore is extremely humid. Therefore, we experienced a lot of mould on our clothes and our things. We shared a bathroom with 6-8 other students. There were 3 toilets and 3 showers. This was actually enough, as I never had to wait in line to take a shower.
I will absolutely recommend living on campus, for both financial and social reasons. In Singapore, almost every local student lives on campus and all social activities are linked to the university. Hence, living on campus is a great way to get to know people and be a part of the Singaporean society.
It is important to mention that here are very limited cooking facilities at campus. I ate all my meals in the canteens. There are 15 canteens in different shapes and sizes. You can basically get all kind of Asian food as well as some Western food at the canteens. The food at the canteens is cheap and you can buy lunch/dinner for SD4-6.
I am studying economics and finance at QUT, but it was difficult to match my courses with the ones at NTU. Therefore, I ended up with one finance course and three management courses (electives). I studied Investments, Strategic Management, Talent Development and Management, and Cultural Intelligence at Work. We had 4 hours of tutorials in each course every week. The classes were quite small with between 25-35 students. Attendance was compulsory and it often counted for 10-15 per cent of your grade.
The teaching methods were pretty similar to the ones at QUT except for 4 hours tutorial instead of 2 hours lecture and 2 hours tutorial. I had group projects in all my classes. That was a nice way to get to now the local students and get an impression of how they work. Furthermore, there was either a mid semester exam or an individual assignment and then a final exam at the end of the semester in every course. The academic intensity was the same pretty similar to QUT.
Singapore is the most expensive city in the world so the cost of living is obviously higher than in Australia and Brisbane. Living on campus helped me a lot financially. I paid 30-40 per cent of what most of the exchange students did off campus. The cheap accommodation gave me the opportunity to travel a lot and experience 8 countries in the South-East Asian region. I think I used approximately the same amount of money on food as I usually do in Brisbane because of the cheap food at the canteens. Alcohol is really expensive in Singapore and as a male I often had to pay cover to get into the bars and nightclubs.
Here are some pictures from my exchange semester in Asia:
