NTU exchange – 10 months recap

By Thatthep Sae-Lim. Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.

I’ve been trying to find the best way to reflect and recap my experiences doing an exchange at NTU for the longest time and I think theres no better way to put a closure to my exchange by looking back at the most interesting or memorable things that happened month by month.

August

I remembered being excited about everything, simply because I didn’t know what exactly to expect. I was also very thrilled to be hanging out with my friends from secondary school again.

September

In September, I spent most of my time adapting to my life in Singapore. It was slightly difficult for me to adapt to the workload at NTU, given that I have at least three deadlines weekly at NTU. Whereas, there are less assignments at UOM and they are more spread out. I was also struggling a bit as it was my first time needing to commute to school/university. This was because I decided to live off campus and NTU is far from literally everywhere.

October

I started to get use to how things work at NTU and was able to manage my workload so, I went out with my friends more often in October. We went cafe hopping in Tiong Bahru, which is the neighbourhood I’d been wanting to go for awhile. We also went to the Halloween Horror Night (HHN) at the Universal Studio. I last went to HHN in 2015 and was extremely scared of the haunted houses. Since I was back in Singapore again, I gathered all my courage and decided to go there again with my friends. Lastly, we also went to see Christmas decorations at Orchard Road and Marina Bay Sand. This was my first time as I was always overseas during the holidays.

November

I spent most of November finishing the last few assignments and finals. I was very struggling with Physics and decided to purposely fail it in order to spend my time focusing on other Psychology courses. This was partly my fault for deciding to take Physics for the first time at university level, as a Psychology student 🙁

On a happier note, I did go back to Thailand to visit my family during the Christmas holiday!

December

Other than being able to spend the holiday with my family, the trip to Koh Samui was the best thing that happened in December. I really enjoyed being at the beach and eat good Thai food again!

January

Being in a hot and humid climate for so long, I started to miss the cold, dry, and freezing weather. So, my mom and I decided to go to Japan in the winter. It was my first time experiencing that much snow. Its fair to say that I got really sick of the snow and weather upon coming back!

February

It was Chinese New Year in February. Despite having lived in Singapore before, this was my first time celebrating CNY the Singaporean way. I went to get hotpot and Vietnamese food at my friend’s. We also went to Garden By The Bay to see the CNY decoration. Me and a group of friend also did the viral McDonald prosperity toss (lo hei) on the last day of CNY.

March

In the first half of March, I went out a lot with my friend not knowing what was waiting for me. I was very happy to visit the Singapore Zoo for the first time, although it was rather underwhelming.

From the third week onward, it was like my worst nightmare came true. I was very busy with all the assignments and studies that I barely had anytime to sleep!

April

And the chaos continued throughout the month of April..

For me, semester 2 was much harder than semester 1 because I did the mistake of having too much confidence that I would be able to handle 5 advance modules. Whenever I told my full time local friends that I was taking 5 advance modules, they would always ask if I was okay and if I was crazy to do that as it was even more than what full time students normally take.

Initially, I thought they were overreacting, but the reality started to hit me when there were five deadlines crashing on the same day. I was so busy that I barely slept well and could literally count the number of days I slept on my bed in April. I also ended up not celebrate my birthday as I was having assignments after assignments. There were literally four essays due on my birthday itself ;-;

Although I did find the overall experiences weirdly fun and challenging, I strongly against anyone from doing this. I can truly say that I will never want to relive April 2024 ever again.

May

I went to Japan again in May. Knowing I would be in Japan soon was the only thing that kept me going during April 2024. The weather was much nicer than the last time as it was late spring. I can’t wait to be back again!

You can read my blogs about my trip to Koh Samui and both trips to Japan here as well! There were definitely ups and downs throughout the ten months I was in Singapore and I’m glad and very proud of myself that I got through it 🙂