Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore (part 1)

“If you ever wonder how worth to invest your time to study in NTU, I think that it’s worth it.” — Perspective from Indonesian student

If you come back to my Introduction part, I’m spending my 17 years of life in Indonesia, and get accepted under tuition grant subsidize from the Ministry of Education Singapore in one of the top universities in Singapore, NTU.

Before that, I need to explain about the tuition grant program from Singapore. Basically, International students are getting half tuition fees to subsidize for their study in NTU through their studies. Here is the condition if the student is going to NTU with this condition

• Education: They need to maintain their GPA 3.5/5.0
• Financial: They need to have money for their living cost (accommodation, and daily needs) and their tuition after subsidize
• Commitment: They need to work for 3 years in Singapore, or anywhere under Singapore company

Some international students like me, who don’t have a strong financial background, sometimes wonder about how to cover the expenses.

Let’s evaluate each of the bullet points, although all of them are related to each other

Education

To get 3.5/5.0 in the worst case, you need to maintain at least B for each of the modules taken. Based on the observation, it’s often not hard for an international student to achieve, even I believe most of the international student is at least Second Upper Honour (4.0–4.5/5.0)

Commitment

Obligation to working in Singapore for 3 years, seems to be misinterpreted into “Study in NTU and the jobs will be provided to you”, which is need to be evaluated once more that NTU is not guaranteed you to get a job right after you graduated. But,

• NTU is one of the top universities, which produces high-quality student that is job market demands
• NTU provides career consultation for you to a build-up of the portfolio to cope with the job-demand, and NTU provide you a platform to connect and understand the real-world job like Career Fair, etc

Which to be summarised on the commitment section that “NTU having a great path to excel in working with a good and consistent effort invested”

Financial

As the International student need to pay around 17.000 SGD per year (after subsidize), people often get overwhelmed due to the number which is excluded accommodation (300–450 SGD/month) and the daily needs (food, etc assume to have at least 300 SGD/month). Most of the international student is rejecting themselves after the acceptance letter received, or if they still consider themselves to enter, they always asking this question :

Is it worth to invest my energy, time, and money?

Yes, I believe the moment when you choose to study NTU is all worth it!