Random Stuff...

It's been a while since I posted the last one... I'll write some random stuff today....

UTown
UTown is the place where most of the dormitories are located. As I mentioned before, this place was built two years ago so everything is quit new. They have pretty good food places; two food courts & small restaurants. They also have the largest Starbucks in Singapore.

This is the new food court and just opened in this January. They have Chinese, Indians, Malay, & Western food. It depends on what you order but food are usually cheap here. You usually have to pay S$2.50-$5.00. I think I paid S$4.10 for this one.

 
So, I live in the graduate residence. I'll just show some pictures...

Graduate residence has up to 25th floor and I live on the 23rd. The view from my room is pretty nice. All I can see is NUS campus but this is only a small part of it!!

I don't have any pictures of my room but I think it's about 25 sq ft (8 sq m). A room comes with a desk, chair, closet, & bed. You have to bring your own bed linen, a pillow & an internet cable. Wi-Fi is limited in this building.. I also recommend you to bring or buy some hangers... Some rooms have air-conditioning but I have a ceiling fan instead. One good thing about this place is you don't have to clean up the shared space like living room. You'll still have to clean up your own room but it's small so it's not much.

 

Education Resource Center

 

This is the place where you can study for 24/7. The biggest Starbucks is located in this building. You have access to Mac & PCs. They also have private study room and seminar rooms.

EduSports



 



 

Sorry, this picture looks really bad... But the weather around here is always like this.. We actually had thunderstorm this past few weeks..

 

Anyways, the EduSports has sports hall, dance studio, gym, swimming pool, the new food court, bookstore etc... I heard the gym will be open sometime this semester.

 

Moving on...

Textbooks

Since I'm taking business modules here, I got all my books from the Central Library. There is a small bookstore at this location. All of them were new and I think the most expensive one was around S$60-70 so it's a lot cheaper comparing to textbooks from UH bookstores. You can also get used ones through IVLE (from your own account). I also heard that you might be able to rent a textbook from the library for two hours but I'm not exactly sure...

 

Club Activities

I decided to join the dance clubs called D'Hoppers (Hip hop) and Jazzttitude (Jazz but mixed with other styles). It's once a week lesson and S$70 for 8 lessons. They have different levels and the instructors are really nice. If you are not interested in dance, NUS has other sports clubs so definitely you should join them!! This will be the chance to meet the local students outside of classes!

 

Climenti Mall

This is probably the one of the closet shopping mall from NUS. I usually shop my groceries here. I got my pillow and bed linen too but I should have gone to IKEA... You can take a bus 196 from UTown  or 96 from NUS campus. It takes about 10-15 minutes to get there. You can use your Ez-Link card and I believe it's S$0.73 one way. One thing I noticed is that most of the American products are pretty expensive.. Japanese products are also expensive but I felt American products are even higher.. I wonder why..

 

If you want to do the real "SHOPPING," Orchard is the good place to go. The shopping malls are huge! There are lots of luxury brands there. But they do have Forever 21 and H&M as well...

 

 Chinese New Year

I didn't have school on Feb. 10&11. So I went to Universal Studio Singapore during the break. Since I went on the new year's eve, I got to see some fireworks in the evening!!

 

 

I didn't have a chance to go but in Chinatown they had Chinese new year's countdowns! I heard my friends had a lot fun so it may be a good idea to go if you are studying in Spring semester.

 

Recess Week

Recess week is from Feb. 23rd to Mar. 3rd!! This is the one of the longest break you'll get so this is the time to travel!! I'm planning to go to Penang Island in Malaysia with my friend for a couple days! So EXCITED!! X]

 

I'll update more about my trip when I came back!!

 

The Past Couple of Weeks

I'm sorry for not updating my blog for a long time... I was pretty busy...

Now, I'll share some of the things I did or learned in this past couple of weeks.

Registration Day

On this day, you turn in all the required documents to process your registration and your student pass (student visa). You'll get your student ID on this day. I recommend you to be there on time or earlier since all the exchange students will be there and you'll have to wait for a long time... And make sure you have everything with you! One of the things I needed was a passport-sized photo. When I showed it to this lady, she told me my eyebrow is slightly covered with my bangs... So I ended up waiting in a long line and paid $7 for 4 pictures where I actually needed only one.... Anyways, you can pick up your student pass in a week or two.

Welcome Briefing

Information session was held by the business school for non-graduating exchange students. You'll be given an Information package and a timetable of the courses you are currently registered for. Instruction on add/drop courses are also given.

Courses I'm taking

All my modules (courses) are from the business school!!

• MKT2401 - Asian Markets and Marketing Management (equivalent to MKT361)
• MKT3402 - Consumer Behavior (equivalent to MKT311)
• MNO3301 - Organizational Behavior (equivalent to MGT341)

All my classes are 3 hours long... We usually get one 10-15 minutes break in between but it's not enough for me... It's like classes at UH. I think there are around 30-40 people in each class. We have in-class discussions, group case analyses, quiz, group project & presentation... I actually realized students at NUS study really hard. Most of the students in my classes raise their hands and speak up at least twice or three times during the class discussion. Many of them are always studying, even while they are eating..

Class Registration

Since I was talking about my classes, I should also mention about the class registration. At NUS, they have a bidding system for course registration. It sounds confusing but lucky for exchange students since we don't have to deal with it! For exchange students, we just had to list up to 10 course preferences on an application form. Once you are accepted, you will receive an email with the list of courses you are currently enrolled in.

I actually had a hard time registering for the consumer behavior course. I couldn't get into this course at my first registration so I had to register during the add/drop period. It made me more difficult to register because I couldn't find out the time schedule of this course until I have access to IVLE which is like a MyUH Portal at UH. So I ended up missing two classes in the first two weeks.

Transportation

Transportation here is pretty easy to remember. You only need one card called Ez-Link card to access MRT (train system) and buses. We also have NUS shuttles going around on campus. Since I live in UTown, I need to take D2 to get to Business building and D1 to come back. You can check the bus routes in NUS map which is on their website. It's getting off the subject but you also need an Ez-link card to print out your lecture notes.

Trip to Sentosa

Sentosa is a small island located in the southern part of Singapore. I heard they have great beaches there. I'm not sure if they are as good as Hawaii... Universal Studios Singapore is in this island.

Orientation was held here by the business club for business exchange students. They were planning do a lot of activities at the beach but it was pouring so we couldn't do much.. But I still got to know some people so I had fun :-)


This is one of the old pictures I took  when I just arrived at Singapore.

 

Merlion

 

Well, I finally figured out how to upload pictures so I'll post more and try to update my blog more frequently!! Now, I need to go and study for my first quiz!