Study Abroad Diaries: Hannah Burnett – post 1

Student experience 8 August 2019

Hi! My name is Hannah, I’m 20 and I am from Devon in the south west of England. After 2 amazing years at The University of Manchester I am heading to Singapore in south east Asia to study at Nanyang Technological University (NTU) for my third year.

NTU is on the east side of Singapore, away from the hustle and bustle of the main city, situated on a campus which is mostly self-sufficient. There are numerous canteens and places to get food, gyms and sports centres as well as a myriad of residential halls. The campus is also in close proximity to external shops, which will be very useful when I realise I forgot to pack something.

I got my place at NTU by applying through the International Placement Office at the University of Manchester. This process began at the start of year 2 with a group meeting within the School of Chemistry to explain the application process. The application required us to rank our top ten universities; in order to do this, I short-listed and researched the possible exchange universities by talking to other students at the Go Abroad fair and browsing university websites. The school provided us with a mock application and a short interview to discuss our choices of courses, universities and the application itself.

Since getting my place there has been so much to organise. We had to apply directly to our universities as a registration formality,  book flights, apply for a visa (for Singapore this is the Student Pass), apply for accommodation and register/appeal for modules. Depending on the country and university, the process may be simple and easy or difficult and frustrating or a bit of both.

Getting onto chemistry modules at NTU has been awkward. All their modules require pre-requisite content which is comparable to what we study in the first 2 years at Manchester. However, this means that I have had to appeal each module that I was initially rejected from, and provide evidence for the material required. This included Manchester course codes and module descriptions. For other universities this process might be much simpler and quicker. The courses at NTU are similar to modules taken in third year at Manchester but also overlap with year 2 content, which might make things a bit easier…

Nevertheless, moving to the other side of the world, to a completely different culture, is daunting but definitely just as exciting!

Thank you for your post, Hannah and we look forward to hearing how you get on during your year in Singapore. 

HannahSingaporeStudy Abroad