MARCO POLO
General report
1. Ubaya
My name is Michelle Groothedde and this is my report about my experiences
studying at Ubaya in Surabaya, fall semester 2014/2015. The semester started with
an introduction day the 22th of August. The semester consisted of two blocks, both
ending with 2 weeks of examination (mid-terms and finals). Our last classes took
place in December before Christmas break started and we had one last week of
finals the beginning of January. The last possible exam date is January 16. The
university is big and has many facilities, such as an International Office, library, and
a canteen. The International Office was our favourite place at uni because there
were nice spots to sit down and have (decent) coffee.
2. Contact with home faculty, preparation and journey
Contact with the home faculty is good since you can e-mail with the outgoing
exchange department when you have questions. Before we left for Indonesia we had
to send Ubaya all kinds of documents but you can do it via e-mail and everything is
clear. The journey to Surabaya was alright since Surabaya has an airport.
3. Residence abroad
You have the choice between a boarding house (mainly with Indonesians) which is
really cheap, and Metropolis, which is an apartment building. I stayed at Metropolis
and it is nice and modern and has many facilities, such as a swimming pool, gym,
laundry service, food court, and a supermarket just downstairs. You have multiple
room options. You can rent a double bedroom (to share), a single bedroom, and a
studio, which is the cheapest option. This costs between 130 and 180 euros for a
month.
4. Grant
We had to apply for a social-cultural visa, which you can get for the first 60 days.
After that you have to extend for every month but this can easily be arranged at
Ubaya. They can do it for you. You also need some vaccinations before you go to
Indonesia and you have to get a health check from your doctor. I arrived in
Indonesia on the 6th of August. Got picked up from the airport by Ubaya and our
‘buddy’ helped us with everything, from arranging everything at the police station to
helping us with our rooms in Metropolis. I left Indonesia the 27th of January. As
mentioned before, the semester started with an introduction day. We met everyone
and did a city trip with some historical and cultural stops along the way, which was
nice. At Ubaya, the teachers we had spoke English quite alright, but in general
people in Surabaya do not speak English so it is difficult to get around sometimes
and no one will understand you. It is convenient to learn the basics of Bahasa
Indonesian, just to make yourself understandable when you are taking a taxi for
example. You get the option to learn Indonesian at Uni but this is quite expensive.
There is not much to do in Surabaya itself. We spent a lot of times in one of the many
large shopping malls to have coffee or go to the cinema. You have to take a taxi
everywhere you go, except when you go to Uni since you can walk there in about 15
minutes. There are a few nice restaurants and nightclubs for if you want to go out
during weekends. Furthermore, there is not much of culture in Surabaya. To
experience this you should make trips around Java or visit the other islands. Every
island is different and has a different culture, which is interesting. Since there is not
really much to do in Surabaya we did a lot of travelling. Surabaya has got a big
international airport so you can fly anywhere (relatively cheap). We travelled to
Lombok, Gili islands, Borneo, Bali, and some cities and areas in Java, such as
Yogyakarta. We had class from Monday until Wednesday every week so that left us
with a lot of time to travel. You can fly to Bali in 45 minutes for 25 euros so we just
went to Bali and Gili’s to party for the weekend many times. You get a Marco Polo
grant of approximately 900 euros. You get 70% in advance and 30% when you get
back. I think this is a reasonable amount, but not enough to cover both the flights
and the accommodation. In general Indonesia is a cheap country to live in. You can
also make it as cheap or expensive as you want. Food in Surabaya is really cheap.
You pay a euro for a meal. Of course you will spend more money when you travel
(flights, accommodation, food, drinks, etc.). The flight to get here is quite expensive
and the vaccinations will cost you some money, but some insurance companies
cover this.
5. Study
The level of education at Ubaya is not that high, especially compared to Groningen.
We often got the impression that the teachers did not even have knowledge of the
courses they were teaching us. We also had different teachers every week and it
often happened that a teacher was teaching one course one week, and teaching
another course the next. For almost every course we had open book exams. This
makes it easy to pass a course. It is also completely normal for teachers to be 30
minutes late. There is one class of 2,5 hours a week for every course, which is quite
long. The study program is well organized with specific semester and examination
dates. There are two weeks of midterms in October and 2 weeks of finals in January.
The international part is well organized as well. The international office will help
you with everything and if you e-mail them with questions they will respond within
the day.
In general, everything was arranged well and I did not experience any problems
during my stay. Learnt a lot of staying in a developing country like Indonesia for 6
months, you start to look at things differently. I had an amazing exchange with
everyone we met here and on our travels and I highly recommend Surabaya just
because you get the opportunity to travel a lot.
Specific report
Crosscultural Psychology
This course was worth 6EC. The duration of the course was 5 months. Class was
once a week and lasted 2,5 hours. There were two teachers for this course and they
were always both present. The course made students aware of the different cultures
within the world and the effect of those cultures on people’s behavior. Mainly the
Indonesian culture and other Asian cultures were discussed. A lot of activities were
done in class to keep people interacting with each other. Every week we had to read
some articles. There was no book. We went on some trips for this course, which was
nice. Once we went to a farmer’s village where we followed the farmers around. (We
had to write a report about this as our midterm exam.) We stayed at a homestay for
two nights and also went to the Bromo volcano to watch sunrise. We also had to
hand in a paper for our final exam and present it. This course fits well into the other
courses of International Business, as cultural differences are present in every
business that goes international.
Fundamentals of Human Resource Management
This course was worth 6EC. The duration of the course was 5 months. Class was
once a week and lasted 2,5 hours. We had different teachers for this course. The
teachers just mainly talked about working in Indonesia every class. We had to write
assignments sometimes in enormous groups. At times it was interesting because we
do not have HRM in our IB bachelor. The midterm and final exam were open book.
Business Communication
This course was worth 6EC. The duration of the course was 5 months. Class was
once a week and lasted 2,5 hours. Funny that the course is called Business
Communication since the course was not arranged well and there was a lack of
communication between teachers. Sometimes we got an assignment from one
teacher that another teacher simply just changed. Very confusing. This course was
not even high school level as we learned how to write e-mails and how to make a
powerpoint presentation. During that class the teacher showed us two different
types of fonts and we had to tell him which of those (obvious) fonts was the most
clear. Both exams were open book, so we basically learned nothing.
Fundamentals of Marketing Management
This course was worth 6EC. The duration of the course was 5 months. Class was
once a week and lasted 2,5 hours. This course started with the basics of Marketing
management but got more extensive later on. We had to make a few assignments
and sometimes we had to prepare something in class and present it afterwards. The
teachers teaching this course were quite good. We had a few quizzes in between
exams and the Midterm exam was closed book. The final was open book.
Intermediate Accounting 1
This course was worth 6EC. The duration of the course was 5 months. Class was
twice a week. The normal class lasted 2,5 hours and during this class we covered the
theory from the book. We had small tests almost every week and a big quiz twice
(apart from the exams). We also had assistant classes once a week in which we
practiced everything we learned during the normal classes. We got tests in this class
as well and it counted as a bonus grade. This course is an extension of the
Accounting course we had for IB. It was a bit difficult at times but doable when you
prepared for your tests, quizzes, and exams.