#pingineurope EP. 1 — The journey to an exchange life in Denmark!
“Starting a journey to look for myself, and someone among the thousands travelling, who might be waiting for me” — The Special Journey (Da Endorphine)
My name’s Ping, a third year chemical engineering student at NTU (Singapore). I’m a Thai, but I’ve been studying and living in singapore since september 2002. (That’s kinda long huh)
Well, at the start of my university life, I was extremely determined to go for exchange. But some things happened (and that was falling for one of my friend) which changed my mind about going on exchange. Oh well, but in the end my mind changed again (because I was too heartbroken and I need to get out of the same place) and here I am, writing about the most awesome 5 months and 11 days of my life (thus far).
The prerequisite to apply for an exchange is a minimum cGPA of 3.6/5 (not sure if it has changed). I would consider myself superrrr lucky ‘cos my cGPA is 3.7. (Bless everything that gave me this chance)
The main reason for many of us students longing to go for exchange is obviously to get out of the convenient tiny island and explore the world outside (obviously), but there’s more to that.
During the exchange terms, ALL courses that we would be taking overseas will NOT be graded a.k.a. we just need to pass the subject. As long as you pass, the subjects would be considered cleared. And if you fail, your cGPA is not affected! THAT’S THE BEST THING IN A UNI STUDENT’S LIFE! Seriously, if everything was pass/fail, the world would be a much better place. #imjustlazy
So, in summary… take as many subjects as you want/can/are allowed, make sure you pass everything, return to Singapore and enjoy the relaxed lifestyle (which do not come by easily in Singapore). Some universities restrict the number of subjects allowed to be taken, so it is our job to do research on the universities we are interested in. Imagine getting to go on exchange only to find out you’re allowed to clear 4 subjects (and your normal is 7), it is almost certain that you would return to Singapore to face a death sentence of overloading, or might even result in an extension of your graduating year. THAT WOULD BE SAD. But still worth it, honestly.
Aside from the number of subjects allowed, we must also do research on the subjects available and whether or not it could match to our curriculum. Matching of mods is done by submitting the course description and the website to the school website, and the professor in charge would approve/disapprove of the matching. This may require some plot twisting skills when explaining to the prof, pleading him to approve instead of disapproving the course.
The short cut way would be to just ask around. Friends, seniors… everyone you knew had been to the university for exchange. Hohohoho. And with all these consideration, we would be able to choose a few “more appropriate” university for our exchange! I don’t remember the universities name, but I can remember the countries.
- UK — Strathclyde and Manchester; but both are extremely popular and there is a restricted number of mods allowed
- Germany — When it was my turn to apply, they require us to have basic German language knowledge. #nope
- Turkey — interesting…. but nah.
- Taiwan — Sorry Asian countries, I refuse to stay in Asia.
- USA — Personal feelings: I’m intimidated by USA. I’ve nooooo idea whyyyyy.
- Denmark — PERFECT. Europe, no mods restriction, new university on the list (a.k.a. not very known yet) and the subjects could be easily matched!
One of my greatest dream was to go to Europe. I read a lot of Thai novels; and sooooo many of these have settings based in European countries. France, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Austria…. together with the description of how romantic and beautiful these countries are, is life-threatening. How sweet/ movie like/ romantic/fairytale would it be if I were to find my soulmate in Europe, and then travel around together?! EXTREMELY ROMANTIC. (yea even if he’s from a different country, I’m a hopeless romantic who believe that love would overcome everything; including distance)
Being a full time Harry Potter nerd, getting to go to UK whilst in Europe was another reason why I wanted to go to Europe so badly.
So, the obvious first choice was Denmark. We were allowed to put 6 choices and I roughly remember putting in UK, Canada and Turkey. (I think)
So that was it. Took me 2 days to decide, a day to get permission from my parents who were extremely supportive (thankyou mummy and daddy)… and then it was the waiting time.
Wait. Checking email. Wait again. Check email every 3 minutes. Repeat for a few days.
and then…. I was given my first choice — Technical university of Denmark (DTU)! I was having dinner after my internship and could remember how much I wanted to scream out in the middle of the foodcourt but had to control or I could easily be dragged to the mental section of the hospital cos I was eating in the foodcourt of NUH.
So…. NTU has nominated me (and 5 others) to DTU. All we can do now is again, wait for the acceptance. While waiting for the acceptance, we had to settle a lot of documents and paper work such has our transcript, our financial status and our visas.
Aside from the official paper works, we also had to start matching the subjects. We were able to match 13 different subjects; but we only decided to take 9. Some of the subjects have timetable that clashed.
And one fine day, we received out student number, and was told to apply for the accommodation. Our first choice were all Campus Village.
The Campus Village (CV) consists of many containers. within each container, there are either 9 or 10 individual rooms, depending on the container. Some of these containers would have 2 showers, 2 toilet cubicle, 1 washing machine and one dryer. Some would only have 1 shower, 1 toilet cubicle and no laundry facilities. For these containers, there is a separate container with 2 washing machines, 2 dryers and extra toilet cubicles and shower rooms. All containers would have one shared kitchen.
This is the (only) picture of a (far) view of Campus Village. omg i can’t believe i only took 1 picture of this place!!!!
However…… fate decided to be funny and allocate my friend, Cassandra, and I to a shared room in a student house approximately 3.5km away from school. Student houses are houses within 1–4km radius of DTU whereby owners have agreement with DTU to rent their houses to students.
After all these were settled, my 2 other friends from my course could go ahead and book their plane ticket ‘cos it was cheaper. Holding a Thai passport, I couldn’t do anything. Not because I can’t, but because I have no idea when I would be given my visa. Without Visa, i am not able to enter Europe. (Sad passport)
I ended my internship/attachment on the 10th of January. I had my inter-varsity-Polytechnic swimming competition on the 11–12 January. I had to move out of my school hostel on the 15th of january, and I had inter-hall swimming competition on the 18th of January. When is my flight?
I only had 1 pair of jeans, and 1 pair of covered-but-dying nike sports shoes. One big coat. and yea, that’s about all the clothes I have aside from my tshirts and shorts. Time to shop.
oh. and I have no luggage. byebye (parents’) $$$
The maximum weight allowed on the plane is 30kg. I had 2 luggage checked in with a total weight of 40 kg. yup. 40 kg. (23 + 17 kg)
Lemme show you a sneak peak of my giant luggage. Pretty sure I wouldn’t starve for at least a month or more.
and when i took everything out and lay it on the table.
Luckily I checked in early, and the check-in counter girl was extremely nice. All she said was
Make sure you pack 30kg next time so there won’t be a problem! *smiles*
She probably was extremely used to all these excited looking kids flushing the airport twice a year, with the whole school coming down to send them off as though they are flying off for good (and not for a 5mths exchange). Whatever it is, thank you so much for being so nice.☺
And then off I go. on the plane bound for Doha, and then Copenhagen. The start of #pingineurope journey. The start of a dream I had no idea it would come true. Thank you to the people in this picture for making it real.
PS: I had no camera so the only thing I could use to take pic was my iPhone 5. and my sister lend me her polaroid camera. But I only had 50 films sooooo it has to be used wisely.
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