Introduction
IPENG stands for: “International Programs in Engineering”. They are an organization at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) that is dedicated to sending engineering students overseas for study abroad. Although I officially went through the UIUC Study Abroad Office (SAO), I was eligible for the International Engineering Fellowship which paid 80% of my air ticket to and from the location of my studies.
This website is meant to inform students about study abroad. It is especially relevant to students who are going to study at the National University of Singapore (NUS) or thinking about studying at NUS. I do not think any website will be able to prepare you for studying abroad but I hope this will serve as a reference area for pictures, descriptions and some ideas about the univeristy. Perhaps it will alleviate some stress while you're getting ready to go and wondering exactly what to expect from housing and the university.
I have tried to keep to a minimum my biases, criticisms and thoughts that I picked up from my experiences abroad because they are not relevant to the purpose of this website. I have also not included any travel experiences outside of Singapore because they are not relevant to study abroad. If you have a question about something that has not been addressed on this website, you can email me: sbijanki@uiuc.edu
During the fall of 2004 I studied in Singapore at the National University of Singapore, one of three universities on the island city-state at the tip of the Malay pennisula. Singapore is the furthest south-east you can get on mainland Asia. English is one of the official languages in Singapore and probably the most important. Thus, the classes at NUS were all in English and therefore all the students that attend the university all spoke English. It is very easy to get around Singapore if you only know English.
The university is very multicultural and in that sense is a perfect microcosm of Singapore itself. Much like the expats and PR's (Permanent Residents – non-citizens) in Singapore, international students (non-study abroad students who have come as part of a 3-4 year program) made up a fair percentage of the population at NUS. Mostly, they came from areas that are represented by Singapore's official languages such as China, Malaysia, Indonesia, and India (mainly Tamil Nadu).
NUS is a very modern university and also very new. I would guess that most of the buildings were put up within two decades and some were surely built within one decade. The university has a long history starting back when the British controlled the area in 1905, but it doesn't necessarily show (which could or could not be a good thing).
When reading about NUS, if you'd like a reference visit the NUS campus map website
Pictures
The entrance to the NUS Central Library
A good library system is important in any university. For some more pictures of the libraries and a few facts about them, click here.
The entrance to the engineering faculty
A courtyard between some of the engineering buildings
For some more pictures of engineering buildings, click here.
The Yusof Ishak House is comparable to the Illini Union except less used because it's not as centrally placed as the Union.
This is the track and field.
The NUS bus system is pretty good, but not nearly as good as the city bus system. For some reason the campus busses use nice luxury liners. Here is a picture of the exerior of an NUS bus:
For some commentary on the busses and a few more pictures, click here.
The organic chemistry laboratory: a fume hood for every student!
Each different faculty has its own area on the campus and its own canteen. Since all of my classes were in the Science faculty I ate in the science canteen often. Meals were very cheap and I think subsidized by the government because you were supposed to show your ID card or you got charged extra:
The most beautiful part of the NUS campus: the huge, manicured trees lining everything. It's a good idea to get under one of these when you go outside into the hot humid environment. If you've seen these trees in Singapore and you know what they're called, do let me know.
The whole university has an intricate gutter system to handle the heavy rains. It's quite interesting when it rains and all of a sudden the campus is crossed with small concrete tributaries.
The gutter system outside my Hall
The northern end of Singapore's CBD (Central Business District). When you go to Singapore you're really living in the big city!
This is a station in the new North-East line of the MRT (the Singaporean subway)
The Hall
Someone described the hall in a written account in the SAO office as being like one of the halls in Harry Potter. Not quite to the extreme of a fraternity, but at the same time not a dorm. If you come in the fall like I did you will get a chance to see the most important “Rag and Flag” event on the field in the middle of the track. All throughout spring and summer the hall works on a float and a dance to present to the President of Singapore and other judges. There has a to be a theme to the presentation too. The year I was there I guess it was a fairy tale motif.
The presentation is pretty impressive and I recommend you go see it if you can. One after another, these huge floats pull up in front of the stands as cohorts of students painted in dazzling colors and carrying fake swords and spears march up alongside. The dance usually began with the peaceful community celebrating their tranquility when all of a sudden the evil being appears on the scene to the tune of heavy techno music and starts a fight. Then the dance really begins. Dance is almost the wrong word, though. It was more of perfectly choreographed idealized fighting. In the end, the float in the background erupts as the evil being is slayed. The parts of the float move by lever and pulley operated by freshman!
After everyone has presented, the judges vote and then the field opens up as an entourage of Mercedes pull in to pick up the President. The hall I was in (Eusoff Hall) has a reputation for winning these things and they won when I was there too. It's a big deal to win this thing because of all the months of work put into it.
Besides this I think the interhall games played in the spring are the other main hall event but I wasn't there for those. That's not to say that nothing goes on in between. Quite the opposite. A half dozen times the Hall hired a bus to go to a different part of Singapore to sample the food or just to see what's going on there. For a couple of weeks there were intrahall games between the different blocks of the hall. Within blocks there were cookouts or Canadian Pizza Nights every once and a while. And then there are some formal dinners where you're supposed to dress up and eat nice food in the canteen. For these occasions the hall Master (UIUC equivalent: Resident Director) and the Fellows (UIUC equivalent: Resident Assistant) would show up. So, just like you'd expect from a fraternity or a dorm there was always something going on and always a committee to get involved in.
Here are some relevant pictures:
This is a picture of my room. Chances are if you live in a hall you'll get a single. Almost all of the rooms are singles. If you'd like more pictures of what a room will be like I have it pretty well documented. Do email me.
Money
There seems to be a common misconception that studying abroad is expensive. The following will (in the case of Singapore at least) disprove that:
All costs are in US dollars (USD). These costs are for the entire time in Singapore.
978 Cost of housing at Eusoff Hall (inclusive of twelve meals per week)
1720 What UIUC charged me on a semester abroad. This includes Engineering tuition, undergrad tuition and various other charges
100 I bought lots of text books with a hundred US dollars. Email me if you want to read a rant on book prices abroad.
50 Approximately 50 USD for various NUS charges including the Group Health Insurance and the Activity Fee.
240 This kind of money can easily bump you up to 18-20 meals per week.
Total: 3088
Maybe you can see my point already. This may be the bare minimum for some at college, but what more do you need? For 3088 (less than half of the cost of an engineering semester at UIUC) you have a room to yourself with a nice desk and a bed, you're eating like a king, you have all the text books you need, and you have some decent Singaporean health insurance for the semester.
You may have noticed that I didn't include the following. Here's why:
NUS tuition – waived for exchange students
Airfare (could cost up to 1400) – paid for by the “International Engineering Fellowship” through IPENG. Click here for details
Conclusion: For 3088 USD per semester you can't afford not to study abroad.
There is one problem, though, how do you get 3088 USD across the Pacific? Actually, you only need to get 1368 USD across because 1720 is paid to UIUC.
Any way you look at it you're going to get burned somewhere and somehow whenever you transfer money from one country to the other through exchange rates, commissions, costs of doing the transfer, etc. Here's what I think:
--Travelers checks
If you can get these without paying the 2% or so commission (eg if you know someone who works at the bank or sometimes if you hold an American Express credit card) these are an especially good option. They are very safe (make sure to copy down the numbers on the checks) and accepted at many banks.
--Wire transfer
My Dad handled this one so I'm not entirely clear on the details but I'm sure anyone working at your bank could help you out. I think the exchange rates are very good but I'm not sure about how they charge you for doing the transfer. Obviously for this option you'd need a bank account in the country you're studying in. In Singapore, with all of the international students and expats, and with their obsession with international banking, opening an account is very easy.
--Credit card
I'm not too sure about this option. I used my Visa a few times but only for large purchases where credit card was the most convenient way of paying. Frankly, buying air tickets in Singapore was the only time I used my Visa but it's really really good to have a credit card around for a back-up money source.
--ATM
I'm big on ATM's. ATM's are everywhere in Singapore and the rest of Asia and almost all of them worked with my Bank One card. The problem here is that Bank One charged me USD 1.50 every time I withdrew, but they gave me a good rate I think. So every time I withdrew I would take out the maximum the machine would give me, spend that, then get some more at another machine.
In the end, I used a combination of all of the four options. I took travelers checks for around USD 500 which allowed me a minimum balance to open a bank account in Singapore. Then, my Dad transferred me the rest of the money to pay for housing, food, books and then some of my own personal money that I wanted to spend. This allowed me to have a bank account in Singapore with a Singaporean ATM and Singaporean debit card (NETS) which was very convenient. When the account started running low I began using my Bank One card and for purchases that neither cash nor Singapore debit could handle, I used Visa.
Links
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC)
National University of Singapore (NUS)
This is a very important website because it gives you the official module listing for the semester. Click on the “Modules listing” on the left side: http://www.cors.nus.edu.sg/ Keep in mind that this website is for regular NUS students. If you're in the exchange program you won't have to use the bidding system.
Click for more information on the following:
email me: sbijanki@uiuc.edu
This page was written by Sharad Kotagiri Bijanki 3/15/05
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