[SFU OLC Experience] What You Need to Know When Coming on Exchange to Singapore

Program:

Study Abroad › Exchange

University

National University of Singapore

Location:

Singapore

Experience Faculty

Beedie School of Business

My partner university was the National University of Singapore located pretty obviously in Singapore. This exchange was during the term of 2022, fall semester. I major in business administration.

Experience Details

Semester

Fall

Year

2022

Introduction + Preparation

When preparing for exchange it was important to check what courses you planning to take and make sure to have back ups. NUS only shows you what classes they offer the semester before and you won’t be able to actually see what you can take during course selection. Also make sure the course you take has an SFU equivalent.

Financial Preparation

Most places inside a store takes master card or visa but there will also be a lot of store where they only take their local bank cards. Personally, my main source of food came from these food courts called hawker centers. Average meals cost $4-7 in these food courts. Instead of uber they have Grab and some other companies and they are relatively a lot cheaper than uber here. Other than that everything else is just as expensive as living in Vancouver. I used around 2000 cash and around 3000 in master card.

Packing

You don’t have to bring much other than clothes and necessities. They don’t provide bed sheets or pillow or blankets so either bring your own or buy them there. Unless planning to go to places that required a more formal clothing, I did not once needed to wear long pants or shirt or a jacket. Also bring bug sprays.

Travel and Transportation

I talked about Grab but other common transportations are bus and train. Get a “Nets FlashPay” card from a train station and you can deposit money in it to use for bus, train, or most stores like a bank card. Not all train stops have it, you can also settle for a EZ Link card but you can use it in stores only for bus and trains. Some 7-11 also have them as well. Make sure you have cash because although the machines says you can use master card or visa when depositing money in the cards it doesn’t work. NUS have their own bus system. It’s free and it takes you around the campus. They have an app that shows you which bus takes what route and the time it takes to arrive but I forgot what it is called.

Preparation Tips for Future Students

When studying in Singapore you need a student visa called student pass. But before you get the student pass you need an IPA letter and with the letter you need to go to Singapore immigration to get the student pass. With the student pass students will be able to travel outside of Singapore to countries such as Malaysia and back.

During my Experience

Orientation and First Weeks

School related stuff will be on NUS email and there will be a exchange orientation. Download telegram, it’s like their wechat or whatsapp.

Accommodation and Living

NUS is nice because they have dorms that student can apply for, whereas other school such as SMU will not. There are places you can rent but renting in Singapore is very expensive. Not all residence in NUS have meal plans.

Learning and Adaptation

It felt like going to school in Vancouver. There was little to no difference. Singapore does have their own accent and personally I find it just a little hard to understand some times. Most professors are easy to understand but there were times where I had difficulties understanding certain words or sentences.

Cultural and Environmental Observations

Personally, I’m not a sight seeing person, but I did go to most sight seeing places in Singapore. There weren’t a lot. The place is hot. 24/7. The place rains whenever the star aligns and stops when the trees had enough. But even when it rains the place is hot. I left around December and I was sweating before getting on the airplane.

Reflection & Tips

Reflection

Personally, I think it is important to not only make friends with the locals but also with other exchange students as well. You will find people from all over the world and a weirdly large amount from Germany for some reason. Also, if you like to have fun and other events, my experience is that you should make friends with SMU exchange students. A lot of people from NUS focuses a little more from studying and SMU (I’m not sure why) just do a lot more activities.

Advice for Future Students

In general, my advice is that, for a lot of people this is a once in a life time experience. Go have fun and don’t worry about the small details. Go travel during reading week with friends to Thailand or Malaysia and explore. Stuff there is also pretty cheap. But do be careful because some places are not as safe as Singapore and Vancouver. In conclusion, it was fun, 100% recommend.