The new student program at James Cook University in Singapore starts with 2-3 induction days. The campus is very small so you don’t have to be afraid that you don’t know where to go, everything is signposted and there are university staff standing around and helping. At the beginning you choose or swap the previously chosen courses, not completely structured but successfully. Then you get a detailed tour of the campus and we drove to the zoo for a day and received university t-shirts.
Here you have the opportunity to get to know your course of study or to get to know others, consisting of around 40 people. We also had a lot of French and a few Danes. And of course mostly Asians.
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The study program in itself is very simple, you have to choose four subjects (all in English), which are composed of general business administration with reference to the Chinese economy and culture.
The courses are very feasible for German students, so you don’t have to worry about overworking yourself or that you would fail. The quality of teaching depends on the instructor and varies greatly. In all subjects there is a not so serious compulsory attendance and during the semester you have to hand in about two assignments or give presentations per subject, but everything is feasible.
The university itself is very modern and can really be seen in comparison to German universities. The lecturers still have time after the lecture. It’s great if you have a question shortly before the exam, you can write to the lecturer and he’ll call you back!
I arranged for a room relatively well in advance. There is also an offer from the JCU to live in a kind of student residence. Is the easiest, but also the most expensive, way to live there. From there, the lecture buildings and the library on the JCU campus are just a few minutes’ walk away. It was only 15 minutes from my apartment (Singapore isn’t that big anyway). Since Singapore is small, space is expensive. For a small room (14 sqm) in a local family, I had to lay down E 430 per month and that was good for me compared to the others. Unfortunately, you can’t expect European hygiene from locals, you have to get used to it!
Eat
There is no restaurant here like in Germany where there is, for example, Italian, so there are typical ´foot courts`. Here you will always find several different small stalls, snack bars, restaurants in which you can eat very cheaply. You can easily get a meal here for less than 3 euros. However, the food is a little different than with and. Personally, I had really trouble finding something to eat at the beginning and I lost almost 8 kg in Singapore. Fast food is cheaper in Singapore than in Germany. It’s nice but you can try a lot of new things. Some of them also taste really good. You just have to trust yourself and are usually not disappointed. It doesn’t look delicious, but in the end it is!
Culture
Life in Singapore is very fast and you often have the feeling that the people here have a lot of work and very little time. 12-hour working days are the most normal thing in the world here and taking work with you after work is welcome. Otherwise there is not so much culture as the city is very young. But since people from all over the world come together here, you can see many different cultures living next to each other (Chinatown, Little India).
Bus, train and taxi
You can get anywhere easily by bus and train and relatively quickly. Every bus leaves at least every 10 minutes and the MRT (S-Bahn) is never long in coming. Driving a taxi is significantly cheaper compared to Germany, but over time it costs money.
Life
So you can do a lot here and traveling from here is super easy and very cheap. The flights do not cost much (Tiger Airways or Air Asia) and the countries you travel to are even cheaper in terms of living costs. For example, I flew to Bali with my friend who visited me for 5 days, we paid 120 pp for both of us with a flight and hotel. At the time I was here in 7 other countries!
Conclusion
Hmmm… so it’s worth an experience and I think you should just immerse yourself in a new culture. You should be careful that you don’t just do something with the other Germans, otherwise you will miss a lot! Unfortunately, your English will not really improve here, as everyone here speaks very bad English. Oh yes, the afterlife here is also very good (but expensive !!!!). All together it’s a lot of fun, you can travel a lot and well a little we 4 months vacation;)…
