Experience report
ANR:
Name:
E-mail:
Exchange semester:
Academic year:
Host University:
Country:
755307
Rutger Xaverius Smids
rutgersmids@hotmail.com
fall
2014/2015
Thammasat University
Thailand
TOPIC: Admission, arrival, housing
I arrived at the airport with the qualified visa and a way to heavy suitcase and got as tip from friends to
go to the public taxi place because you get there an hour taxi ride for only 10 euro’s. The mistake I
made that I only had the name of the hotel instead so I had a nice taxi ride through Bangkok seeing a
lot of the city. The university arranged an introduction activity around the 14th of august, but I wanted
to travel around in Thailand so I already had my flight the 18th of July. With an American exchange
student that arrived a day before me I discovered Bangkok already and we went to some Islands and
a full moon party. The introduction activity was a bit useless because we got a guide through
Bangkok, although we already figured out most of it ourselves. But it was nice to meet all the other
exchange students.
The university provides a list of possible housing facilities and you can arrange it in advance or just go
there and first stay in a hostel and then try to find. I arranged it in advance with debating the place
where we should stay with the other exchange students on facebook and we decided to stay in
Amarin mansion. It was a big complex with apartments, I had an apartment on my own what most
people had, but you could share it as well. The whole complex provided space for approximately 150
students.
TOPIC: Location of university/city
Bangkok is for sure the most chaotic city I’ve ever been and I’ve also been to cities as Hongkong and
New York. Traffic got no rules at all, the lines are there just for art on the roads and everyone seems
or in total rush or not doing anything at all. It’s a very nice city to live in because it’s just a world city
and you have everything you can imagine. The people are friendly compared with the Dutch, but
unfriendly if you compare it with the people of rural areas.
The Thammasat University is located in the west of Bangkok, close to the river and the old centre. It’s
a good location to do some sightseeing because all the old temples (wat arun and wat pho) & the
grand palace are located close to that area.
Bangkok got a huge party scene, but it’s a little bit less since the takeover of the general because
everything closes around 2am instead of being open all day and night. We were located quite close to
the famous Khoa san road, what we called backpacker area. A lot of bars on the street and street
vendors for beer and a lot of restaurants, this is really the more touristic area and we avoided it after a
couple of weeks. The best restaurants can be found by using trip advisor but overall the more fancy
restaurants and sky bars and the big clubs are located in sukumvit, that’s also the more business
area.
I kept going to the gym and if you study at Thammasat the Sirijay hospital is really close and the gym
there is very good.
If you go to Bangkok of course you have to see the highlights as a real tourist, but the sky bars are
also nice (little bit price though). You also have some hidden things most tourist don’t know about, like
the abandoned world mall, that is crowded with fish after the roof collapsed and got filled with rain or
the abandoned sathorn skyscraper, a 45 floor empty skyscraper. Some very cool things to see.
TOPIC: Academics
The courses I took were 4 400 courses (highest level) and 1 300 course (still challenging).
I took Thai economy, financial markets and institutions, public expenditure, health economics and
economics of transportation. I took 5 courses while most students took 3 or 4, but just to don’t get
study delay. I highly recommended public expenditure and Thai economy because the teachers are
really nice, although Thai economy is kind of hard because I had no knowledge about the Thai
economy before I came there. Health economics is also interesting although the teacher was kind of
boring and I regret I took financial markets and institutions because the subject didn’t appeal to me at
all (if you like finance you like this one). Economics of transportation was by far the easiest one
compared with the 400 courses, although you don’t have anything like that in Tilburg, so that was a
nice difference. So I recommend every subject expect for financial institutions and markets also
because the teacher just wrote her slides and then post it with holes in it so you had to go, what in my
opinion is extremely childish.
The subjects in Thailand in all universities are easier than the subjects at TU. The overall level is just
different. All the subjects provided a lot of slides and the Thai copy all the books and distribute it in
class, so there is no need to buy your own books. The level of English is very good if you look at the
teachers, I was more shocked by the level of English of other exchange students that are not native
speakers.
Overall I was really happy with Thammasat University because you can choose your own schedule,
so I ended up with having classes twice a week only!
Thammasat is also one of the first that got a big underground library and multimedia centre, where
you can study but also relax. You have big TV’s, so in your break you can watch movies. I never
study in libraries though, so I didn’t visit it very often.
TOPIC: Social life
The university organized some events, like a cooking class and Thai boxing classes and I participated
in the last one. Also the university organized a weekend trip, which was really fun! Because I lived in a
building with 150 other exchange students we were all barely in contact with the local students, only
for group projects and actually only really intensive with one student, Ouan. He had an English major
and really enjoyed partying and travelling with us, he is also visiting us in the Netherlands. I had a lot
contact with other exchange students, no dinner was alone and we were always hanging out together.
It was really fun and we travelled a lot and during travel you also meet lots of people. During my
exchange I travelled more than the rest of my life together. Every weekend we left Bangkok to see
Thailand and we’ve also been to Cambodia, Myanmar and Nepal at the end of the semester. We
have been to 10 islands in Thailand and to the jungle in the north and multiple national parks around
Bangkok.
TOPIC: Living costs
I didn’t receive a grant from Tilburg University and everything got financed by my savings account and
my father. My expenses are not comparable with mine in Tilburg, because we didn’t go out that much,
but spend almost everything on travelling. For sure most money was spend on travelling, but during
exam weeks it’s extremely cheap to leave in Bangkok, we had meals for max a euro a meal. I highly
recommend doing the same and spend almost everything on travelling because you are so close to
everything and you won’t get the opportunity to see most places again. The housing was
approximately 250 euro a month, my total amount spend on books was 20 euro (copies) and on food
it’s between 150-400 euro, depends if you sometimes catch a fancy dinner or not. The travelling costs
were the most fluctuating costs, they varies from 100 euro to 2000. Just if it was a busy travel month
or not (I did Myanmar, full moon party and Cambodia in 1 month).
TOPIC: Culture
All the preparations about the culture shock think was over exaggerated. If you travelled outside
Europe then you won’t notice anything of it. It’s impossible to compare the host culture with our own
culture, it’s a totally different world. You will experience a culture shock if you have never been to
Asia. I didn’t learn anything new because of the above, I already have travelled a lot. The only thing I
really dislike about the Thai culture is the fear of “losing face”. Even if Thai people got no clue about a
subject or have no idea what you mean, they always give you an answer or a direction. That is really
a thing, not knowing something is a shame. Besides that I didn’t expect anything different, expected
that in rural areas they are less friendly than in the country side. What I really wanted to learn is how
they think about the political situation, but they are afraid to talk about that subject or to reflect their
real opinion. I would describe the Thai culture as a really friendly and open culture, partly because
most people are Buddhist and they are tight connected. We travelled only in Buddhist countries and
they were quite similar. Ofcourse there are minor differences, but we barely noticed them because of
the big difference with Holland.
TOPIC: Personal development
During my exchange I learned also a lot about different cultures and then in particular the American
and other European cultures. Just the different way of thinking is quite amazing and surprises you
when you don’t expect it. I didn’t learn a lot, maybe more independant thinking, but overall it was just
an amazing half jaar. I wouldn’t do anything different or maybe visit in some spare time in the
beginning Laos, but that’s about it. My best experience was my track to base camp of mount everest,
but in Thailand the hospitality of the people. My worst was the food poisoning in the beginning of the
semester, your stomach really got to adjust to that! I will always remember the people I travelled with
and the travel stories and what we did and where we’ve been and just the freedom.
About myself I learned not to consider everything, but just go and take every opportunity, for instance
a friend called me 1 in the night if I wanted to leave 6 in the morning to go to an island, so we left
around 6!
TOPIC: Tips for future students
Would you recommend an exchange period? Would you recommend your host university? What
should prospective students bring with them/leave behind? What preparation is required for going on
exchange to this destination? Was there anything you should have done in preparation that you didn’t
do?
I would definitely recommend an exchange period to everyone! You get more independant and it is
most of the time just a lot of fun and you can travel a lot. It’s always nice to change your surroundings
and being new in a new city you make so many new friends! I would also definitely recommend
Thammasat university, the teachers are (most of the time) good, the people are fun and you have
enough time to do other things and the subjects are not to difficult. It depends where you stay, but you
should bring sheets and a Thai/English dictionary (a lot of people in restaurants won’t speak English).
You need to have enough points and all your points of your first year, besides of that you need to
have a certain level of English, although other exchange students and Thai persons are way worse.
I should maybe have read a little bit more about Bangkok in prior, but it was fine this way and more
fun to discover things over there!
TOPIC: A picture is worth a thousand words