Yogyakarta, April 29th 2020—Global Engagement Office (GEO) Fisipol UGM held Exposure Talk #2 on Wednesday (29/4). Exposure Talk #2 which was held through Whatsapp Group had
Big City in a Small Island: Singapore as the theme and was presented by Joshua Agustinus Panggabean or Josh. Josh is an UGM Communication Science Batch 2017 student that had the opportunity to participate in a student exchange program to Singapore in National University of Singapore (NUS) on 2019. The discussion started at 11.00 WIB and was moderated by Cerlang Wilfrid as the Media & Event staff of GEO.
Before entering the discussion session, Josh introduced himself and talked about his experience of doing a student exchange program. On August 2019, Josh did an exchange to NUS through the Temasek Foundation International Leadership Enrichment and Regional Networking Programme (TFI LEaRN) 2019. “This program was sponsored by Temasek Foundation, a Singaporean non profit organization under the Temasek Holdings belonging to the government of Singapore.
To start the discussion, the moderator asked the audience about what they want to know about studying in Singapore from Josh. The enthusiasm of the audience was seen through the many questions that poured in. Cerlang then allowed Josh to start the discussion. Josh started talking about the application process of the program he joined. For him, the application is divided to two steps, the OIA and NUS step. OIA or Office of International Affairs is an international office in a campus or is a department that we contact when we want to do a student exchange abroad. Josh explained that in OIA there are links about exchange programs that students can access. Josh also showed the required documents that was in the OIA website. After the submission process of the documents, applicant will get a letter of nomination. “Two things that also needs to be highlighted is the fact that the amount of applicant will affect the selection process. Sometimes there will be an interview or FGD process, but sometimes the document can also directly be screened. Of course, all of this is reliant on each university’s protocol”, he said.
Next, there are a separate process from NUS when you are selected to represent your university to enter the NUS selection. After NUS contacts the applicants, applicant will need to register for the TFI LEaRN scholarship and the NUS selection, both of which are done online. “In a couple days after TFI LEaRN contacts the applicant, the international office of NUS will also contact the applicant to talk about the university student registration and the Student Pass or student VISA,” Josh elaborated.
After going through the selection process, what needs to be done next is to settle in which is divided to housing, registration, and socializing. On the housing step, the NUS Housing committee will give a selection of the dorm that students can live in. We can choose according to our taste. After finishing the dorm issue, there will be another registration where students need to submit their photos and some documents for the visa. According to Josh, socializing might be a bit tricky since most of the students are from acclaimed university such as Harvard, Oxford, etc. Josh suggest that we should be confident in our English speaking skill because usually they will be accommodative and friendly. Though our accent might be different, the culture will be pretty much the same. “Maybe what needs to be paid attention to are people that have different culture. For example people might not be as friendly as the people in Indonesia, or people won’t be that sensitive, so as much as we can we need to try to be adaptive,” Josh explained.
Josh also covered the topic of living cost in Singapore. Before that, Josh explained how the academic life was there. He was enlisted in FASS (Faculty of Arts and Social Science). He was amazed of how intense and efficient was their studying culture there. They really were going to university to learn, not just to get a title. According to him, they really know what they are doing and they are really full of calculations. The education system is similar to the system in Indonesia. One different thing to know is their bell curve system.
Before ending the discussion, Josh explained that we need to know what is our main motivation to know our priority in expanding our skills. We also need to have a rough schedule or to do list so we do not lose our ways. “This is essential because there will be things outside of our expectation. So it is essential to get back on the track that we have set for ourself,” he said.
Untuk mengetahui lebih lanjut mengenai student exchange ke Singapore, moderator membuka sesi QnA atau Questions and Answer dalam beberapa termin. Diskusi berjalan lancar dan sangat hidup dengan pertanyaan-pertanyaan audiens. Josh menjawabnya dengan runtut dan gamblang. Akhirnya, acara ini berakhir pada pukul 12.15 WIB. (/Wfr)
To talk more about the student exchange to Singapore, the moderator opened some Question and Answer sessions. The discussion went smoothly and lively because of the questions from the audience. Josh answered the questions greatly. The discussion ended on 12.15 WIB.