I completed a semester abroad at JCU in the 2015 summer semester (March – June). I’m studying business administration as a master’s at RWTH Aachen. In the bachelor, I had already done a semester abroad in America where MicroEDU (CoCo) was my agent. So I knew that I was definitely in good hands here.
If you choose Singapore, you should prepare for the best time of your life. The shock when you arrive in Asia is great if you have never been there, but the shock is even greater when you are back in Germany and realize that you have just had the best time in your studies.
University
The organization at JCU is admittedly not the best. There is definitely a little chaos there. As a bachelor’s student you still had a good time because everything was on the new campus. But since I was still on the old campus, I had a lot of problems. One had the feeling that the old campus no longer had anything to do with the JCU. It was a former elementary school. Accordingly, everything was built small and for organizational questions I had to turn to the new campus, which was about an hour’s bus ride away. But don’t worry, from August 2015 all students will be accommodated in the new campus.
Courses
You determine the desired courses in advance via CoCo, but of course you have to clarify this with your home university itself, which subjects can be credited and how many credit points (ECTS) you get. Please make sure that each home university regulates the subject credit differently. Both in the choice of subjects and in transferring the ECTS. Some home universities only offer a very small selection of subjects because they have a fixed study plan. At universities that offer a wide range of elective courses, such as mine, you can take almost any subject offered.
At the JCU you have to have completed prerequisites for some subjects. If you are only at JCU for one semester, you cannot of course have completed it and you should not be able to take the desired subject. But I advise you to ignore this for the time being and to choose exactly the subjects that you really want to take. I myself had the problem with 2 subjects and I wrote to the supervisor Noryn Latif ([email protected]) directly and politely asked for permission, because as a student abroad you cannot have taken the leader. This was then confirmed to me directly by the management (after all, it is also in the interests of JCU that you get all the subjects you want).
Level
The performance level at the JCU is not only very low in the Bachelor, but also in the Master. I see the problem for the Master of Business Administration (MBA) in the different admission requirements in Singapore compared to Germany. There you can do an MBA with any bachelor’s degree without having any prior knowledge of business. So I had fellow students who were studying history, sports, design or something else in their bachelor’s degrees and had absolutely no idea about business administration. Of course, you can also imagine that the level simply cannot be high.
LIVING
You can get help from the JCU when looking for an apartment. These have many different brokers. A very popular accommodation for many international students was the “Ace Suits”. A room costs 1500 SGD (approx. 1000 euros) per month with a double bunk bed. You can then share this with a roommate, so that everyone has paid about 750 SGD. The accommodation is also relatively close to the university’s new campus. From autumn 2015, only the new Aljunied Campus will be operated, which is located in the “Geylang” district. The best thing to do is to look for accommodation that is on the green (East-West Line) or orange (Circle Line) subway line.
If you live a little further out, you are welcome to try to negotiate the rental price. I was able to negotiate the landlord down from SGD 1000 to SGD 600 per month for a small single room in a shared apartment. Of course, the scope for negotiation depends on the situation and demand for this room and how you stand in line with it. The rooms near the university, on the other hand, are quite popular and there will hardly be any room for negotiation. Especially not now that the old campuses have been closed and only the new one is still in operation.
Leisure
There is a lot to see in Singapore.For a list of the best sights tripadvisor.de is definitely a great help. Otherwise it is also very relaxing to have a barbecue with friends – preferably with someone in the condo who has a grill by the pool. Surely there will be enough of it. Wednesdays are ladies night, so free entry for women. Boys have the opportunity to write themselves on the guest list and then also get free entry. Otherwise the entrance fee is usually 30 SGD (approx. 20 euros) including 2 drinks. In any case, always take schnapps with you from the duty free at the airport, because alcohol is extremely expensive in Singapore. A bottle of 0.5 l vodka costs at least 40 SGD in Germany, whereas 1 l is available for 26 SGD at the airport. And even if you don’t drink yourself, you can definitely pass it on to your friends.
Learn more information about Singapore and Asia on justinshoes.
Travel
If I were you, I would book the return flight together because it is so much cheaper. Almost as cheap as a single one-way flight. Look out for flights to Bangkok or Kuala Lumpur from Germany as these are the cheapest. The flight from Kuala Lumpur to Singapore does not cost more than 30 euros. I had paid around 450 euros in total. I had booked the outward flight from Madrid to Kuala Lumpur and the return flight from Bangkok to Berlin together onflugladen.de. This only cost 380 euros. Then there was the flight from Germany to Madrid for around 50 euros and the flight from Kuala Lumpur to Singapore for 20 euros (with Malindo Air luggage is even included). So if you are flexible and want to take a look at some cities on your way to Singapore,
During the semester I visited Bintan Island (Indonesia), Luang Prabang / Vientiane / Vang Vieng (Laos), Siem Reap (Cambodia), Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia) and Phuket, Koh Phi Phi, Krabi, Bangkok (Thailand) watched. After the semester, I took another month to look at all the other countries in Southeast Asia. Bintan Island can be reached by ferry, Kuala Lumpur also very relaxed with a bus, as they offer a lot of legroom. And the buses go directly to the city center, so it was even more relaxed than taking the plane. If you can’t find a cheap flight from Singapore, you could fly from Kuala Lumpur, because there are the most and cheapest flights in Asia. Therefore you can make a stopover there before you fly on to another country. From Kuala Lumpur, it’s especially cheap to fly to the Philippines.
My favorite places were Luang Prabang and Vang Vieng in Laos, Phuket and Koh Phi Phi in Thailand, Bali in Indonesia and Cebu in the Philippines.
Be prepared to be ripped off all over Southeast Asia except Singapore. Here the price is always negotiable. Before you pay the abnormally high tourist price, think carefully about the value of the product you want to buy.
