Student Report
Name of the University: Nanyang Technological University (NTU)
Exchange semester: Fall 2013
PRACTICAL INFORMATION
Before leaving Norway
We started to receive emails from Nanyang University in the end of April. The process is
long and requires a lot of time. The mails are detailed, but easily to follow if you read
them properly and take your time. If there is any problem during the process you can
send a mail to NTU, and they provide you help. They have a 24 hours service, so you will
get answers quite fast, so don't be afraid to email them if you have questions.
Applying for a visa
All international students who have been accepted by Nanyang Technological University
(NTU) as full-time students are required to hold valid Student’s Pass issued by the
Singapore Immigration & Checkpoints Authority, which was a pretty straightforward
procedure. The school will provide you with your SOLAR-application (student’s pass
online application registration) to fill out and send you detailed information on how to
do it by email. ICA requires a lot of information, and you have to be very accurate with
providing the right info and what photo you upload in your application. This is the photo
that you will get on your student pass, but even if you get approval of your picture at this
early stage you an experience a rejection of the same picture later because of lack of
white background or not showing your ears in the picture. A lot of exchange students
had to retake and pay for a new picture when they got to the registration day. Our tip is
to present a picture that would be appropriate for a passport. You will get your reply
from this first registration relatively quickly. In this early stage you have to pay a
processing fee of $30 SGD (150 NOK), an issuance fee of $60 SGD (300 NOK) and a
multiple-entry visa of $30 SGD (150 NOK), but this is the only expenses. Norwegian does
not need to apply for an additional visa to enter Singapore.
Be sure to print all needed documents and receipts from this online registration, as you
will need to present them when you’re entering Singapore as a student before you have
gotten your actual student pass (which is being issued at campus in the first two weeks).
NTU will send you a lot of information on this process by email, so if you just follow the
steps as explained this process is not difficult.
Travel
All of us booked flight tickets to Singapore. Some of us booked direct flight from Oslo to
Bangkok with Norwegian, and then a flight from Bangkok to Singapore.
We recommend you to book your tickets early, due to higher prices during the summer.
You can save some money by booking your return ticket at the same time, as December
is also an expensive time to fly.
NB: Thai Airways allows only 20KG in baggage, so we do not recommend you to book a
return flight with this company.
Housing
It is difficult for exchange student to get campus housing. Neither BI nor Nanyang
University assists you in finding accommodation. We therefore decided to hire an agent
before we came to Singapore, which is pretty common for exchangers. Our agent, Linda,
helped us to look for an appropriate apartment in our price range. It is difficult to find an
apartment for less than six months rental, due to Singaporean regulations, so we
strongly recommend you to go through an agent and to start looking for accommodation
early.
Us five girls lived at Jurong West, at a condominium called The Floravale, which is just
15 minutes by bus to school. The Floravale had facilities like a tennis courts, swimming
pools and fitness room all inclusive in your monthly rent.
The agents usually charge a half-month rent for the job, and in most cases you also pay a
deposit of one month rent to the landlord. We paid monthly rent, but some landlords
require that you pay everything before you move in. However, the housing process can
be long and you need allocate a lot of time due to this process. The agent may also need
you to do a quick decision if you want an apartment or not, as it is a lot of people who
want to rent.
Monthly costs
Rent
NOK 4200 per person
Books
NOK 1500 (one time buy)
Depends a lot on the courses you take. At Nanyang Business School you can
buy all your books at Yunnan Book Store. Lecture books and pencils are
really cheap. You can get a lecture book for NOK 5.
Food
NOK 2500 - 3000
In Singapore the local food is really cheap. If you eat at food courts or at the
University you can get a meal for $4 - $5, which is approximately NOK 25. It
is cheaper to eat out than making dinner at home.
We bought a lot of international food at the grocery store, which is more
expensive.
Transport NOK 700
Depends on where you live and how much you want to travel around of
course, but in Singapore transportation is cheaper than in Norway. It is
easy to get around, due to the small size of the country. There is always a
lot of taxis, metros and busses going all the time.
When arriving in Singapore, you should buy an Ez - link card, which you top
up with money, and use when you take the metro and busses. This card can
also be used when printing at school.
Other
Fee to the school and visa 1000 NOK
At the beginning of the semester you have to pay different fees to the
University, e.g medical fee, printer fee, sport fee.
Culture and language
Most of the professors are speaking singlish (which is a mix between English, Chinese
and Malay). It can be a bit hard to understand them in the beginning, but you will get
used to it during the year. However it can be smart to print out the PowerPoint slides
before the lesson and read through them. If there is any words you find difficult you
should look them up before the lesson, so it will be easier to follow.
The language level of the other exchange students is all over quite high. Most of the
other exchange students have some or all courses back in their home country in English.
We found it easier to communicate with the other exchange students, compare to the
Singaporean students.
In Singapore there is a lot of different cultures. The people in Singapore are broadly a
mix of Singaporeans, Chinese, and Indian people. By taking the metro to different places
in Singapore you can experience different kinds of cultures. For example there is one
place called Little India, here there is manly Indian people living. Going there you will
find a lot of delicious Indian food and see the Indian markets.
ABOUT THE SCHOOL
Nanyang Technological University is a fastest-rising Asian university in the world's top
50. The University has 33,000 undergraduate and postgraduate students.
The school is located west in Singapore. It takes about 1 ½ hours to get from the center
to the school by metro and bus, by taxi 25 minutes. We therefore recommend you to try
to find an apartment near to the school; otherwise you will spend a lot of time by
traveling. The locals are very helpful and committed to their schoolwork. When doing
group assignments, it is a good idea to cooperate with the locals. There are many
canteens at the university, with food courts, e.g vegetarian, western, Chinese and Indian.
We usually ate at the newly renovated canteen B (south spine) at the business school.
Course registration
As with the Student’s Pass registration, Nanyang is sure to give out a ton of information
on how this process is being done, but you may feel that it is too much details but not
specific enough on how you actually go through with this. It is therefore important to
prepare by reading all the information you get from the school about course registration
thoroughly and pre-approval from BI, so you can get the courses you actually want.
Before actually getting any courses you have to pre-apply for the courses you want to
read through the semester, and Nanyang will give you approval to apply to these courses
if you fulfill the prerequisites needed. The registration period is the two first weeks of
the semester, and is called an add/drop period where you can add or drop courses. You
can only add the courses you have pre-approved from Nanyang in the add/drop period.
This means that you need to be sure that the courses you pre-apply for are at the right
academic level, with enough AU’s and are being offered in the fall semester. If you end
up with not enough courses after the add/drop period is over, you don’t get the required
amount of AU’s that BI requires.
What we experienced was that you should attend every lecture/tutorial or seminar of
the courses you want in the first two weeks (even if you are still on a waiting list) to see
what the course is about. You can always drop a course that didn’t interest you after the
first class, so it is important to do this to get a feeling of how the course is. One of us also
talked to one of the professor personally, asking her to open another place in a class that
was already full, and got it just by showing interest for the course and explaining why
she wanted to take the course. It is important to attend the classes you want in the
add/drop and show interest for the course, as the professors also can dismiss you from
the class during the add/drop if he feels you are just taking up a seat.
Academic calendar
Arrival date:
2. August
First day of the semester:
5. August
Last day of classes:
15. November
Examination period:
25. November - 6. December
Any special events/holidays: The National day of Singapore: 9. Aug
Hari Raya 9. August
Hari Raya 19. August
Hari Raya 29. Octorber
Diwalli 13. November
Other:
Recess week:
27. September - 6. October
Arrival
As soon as we arrived we had to go to the international office at school to register as a
student. Here we got an information package with all info we needed for the first weeks.
We also attended a introduction meeting for all new exchange students, where we got
information about course registration, info about medical offers, does and don’ts in
Singapore and some legal advice from local police. We also attended an introduction
meeting at Nanyang Business School where we got introduced to some of the professors.
The International Office
We received sufficient and relevant information from The International Office. If there is
any problem or things you find unclear, it is just to send or call them.
Social activities
In the start of the semester there is stands on the school where you can get information
about different activities, which are possible to join during the semester. Are you not a
sports fan there are a lot of other activities going on as well. There is for example a wine
society for those who are interested to learn more about wine.
One of us joined NTU football team. This was a good opportunity to learn about the local
culture and get to know the local students better. The trainings are a bit different
compared to back home, so this is a good way to learn about they how they have to act on and outside the field.
ACADEMICS
In the classroom
Different courses have different learning approaches, with lectures, tutorials or
seminars. The seminars for each course lasts for 4 hours in most cases once a week, with
only 15-30 minutes break. There are approximately 30 people in the classroom at
seminars. In the seminars you get a more personal connection to the professor. Lectures
are more of a professor presentation, with bigger groups and little engagement from the
students. At tutorials the classes can be taught at for example a PC lab with individual or
group exercises.
Attendance and class participation counts on your final grade. Normally, attendance is
10% of the grade, and class participation 5%. During the semester you will have several
assignments in every course, so the workload is bigger and quite different than at BI.
The mid-terms, quizzes, assignments and attendance often counts for 40-70% of your
grade, leaving your final exam grade to count 30-60% of the final grade in the course. At
Nanyang your teacher grades your final exam and sets your total grade.
The academic level is much higher and there is a lot of work to do during the semester
compared to BI. In some of the courses there were homework every week, where we
had to hand in individual/group assignments. In addition, you should always read the
required chapters for the lectures when the teachers use to randomly ask students to
answer questions. Most courses also require you to do a bigger group project with other
students.
Course materials
All professors use PowerPoint during seminars. The PowerPoint contains the main
syllabus, and are very helpful when studying for exams and preparing for class. In
addition to the PowerPoint, textbooks or article booklets are used in most courses.
Exams
The exam counts for 30-60 % of the total grade, depending on the course. The exams
only last for 2 - 2 ½ hours, but even if the exams are shorter compared to the exams
back in Norway, there is still a lot of questions to answer. Be concrete when you answer
the questions. A 2-hour exam at Nanyang has the same workload as a 5-hour exam at BI.
Luckily some professors allow some exam questions to be answered with use of bullet
points.
In the finance courses the exam was very hard and there were questions that wasn’t
included in the lecture/syllabus. In some of the elective courses, the exam was based
only on the PowerPoint slides from the lectures, so these courses were quit easy to
prepare for the exams.
Library and technology
As NTU is a very big school, there are different libraries, printing room, reading rooms
and styles of classrooms. Part of the school is newly renovated, but the business faculty
is older. Still, Nanyang Business School has nice classrooms and reading rooms, but you
can also visit other libraries or study rooms to study on.
Description of courses
Course code
& name
Master/ Exam
Bachelor form
Prerequisites
Approved as
Comments
AB 3601
Strategic
Management
Bachelor
2 1/2hour
written
exam
None
Strategy
Hard and requires a
lot of analysis and
critical thinking.
BF 2207
International
Finance
Bachelor
2-hour
written
exam
Macroeconomic
at BI
Finance course
Hard.
Interesting
and
relevant
course.
Very hard final
exam.
Excellent
teacher: Dr. Siri
Chutikamoltham
BF 2201
Investments
Bachelor
2-hour
written
exam
Finance course
Very Hard
BH 2603 Talent
Sourcing and
Acquisition
Bachelor
2-hour
written
exam
Elective (HR
course)
Easy, interesting
course in HR
BF 3201
Corporate
Finance and
Strategy
Bachelor
2 ½hour
written
exam
Finance course
Hard. Difficult to
understand the
teacher due to
singlish. BI
students do not
have the
prerequisites
needed.
BT3502
Tourism and
Technology
Bachelor
2-hour
written
exam
None
Elective (Tourism
and
Hospitality course)
Fun and easy
course. The teacher
(Miss King) was
great. A lot of
exchange students
took this course.
BA2206/
BA219
PRINCIPLES OF
Bachelor
2-hour
written
exam
Statistikk
Finance course
Middle level. It was
a bit hard to
understand the
AB 105
RISK AND
INSURANCE
teacher, which was
of Chinese origins.
BH2601
STRATEGIC
HUMAN
RESOURCE
MANAGEMENT
AND
CONSULTING
Easy
CS4070
Issues in
Advertising
Bachelor
2-hour
written
exam
Marketing and
Consumer
Behavior
Elective
(Communication
course)
Relatively easy,
familiar topics to a
marketing student
from BI, but at the
same time
challenges your
critical thinking.
Will recommend it
for marketing
students.
Joining an activity is by our experience the best way to get to know the natives, so we
strongly recommend you to join an activity! Taking part at the stands in the start of the
semester is the easiest way to get the information needed. Joining an activity is a good
opportunity to get to know other exchange- and native students and to learn about their
culture, so do not stick to an all Norwegian group.
We will highly recommend you to take your semester abroad in Singapore. Singapore is a
great country to live in. You get to experience different cultures such as the Indian, Arabic
and Chinese culture. Singapore is clean, safe, rich and a highly developed country compared
to other Asian countries. Also there is great shopping opportunities and a great nightlife. In
addition there is easy to travel to other destinations in Asia such as Malaysia and Indonesia.