These students share more about how they had to "adapt or drown" in their new countries.
SINGAPORE – The majority of Singaporeans going abroad for their studies head to one of three anglophone countries – the United States, the United Kingdom or Australia. However, a small but steady stream of students are opting for unusual alternatives.
The same figure in Sweden climbed from 23 to 47 over the same period, according to Statistics Sweden. Other non-typical destinations experiencing a growing tide of Singaporean undergraduates include Germany, Japan and the Netherlands. As a comparison, most of Singapore’s public autonomous universities charge citizens between $7,500 and $12,700 a year after subsidies, depending on the course.
Mr Jade Toh made the move from Singapore to Kajaani, Finland in 2023 to begin his undergraduate programme in business administration. He is pictured with his partner Hoa Tran and Hong Kong exchange student Yedda Ng. PHOTO: COURTESY OF JADE TOH He says: “I’ve come to realise that when I talk about work-life balance with bosses in Singapore, they shut me down and tell me you have to just work and be appreciative that you have a job. That is not the case here.”Living in a small town like Kajaani meant struggling to be understood in English. Once, when his car battery died, he called up at least four car workshops and tried to explain what he needed in patchy Finnish, only to be turned away.
Affordable school fees also clinched the deal. Her fees were about $8,000 a year, and they were reduced by various full or partial merit-based scholarships she received in some semester. “People here are very nice to you, but I will still be seen as a foreigner, no matter my Korean fluency or what I wear,” says Ms Ng, who adds that many Koreans keep foreigners at arm’s length.
She also cooked half her meals, and by doing so, managed to keep her living expenses between $1,000 and $1,500 a month as a student. “In Korea, there is this unspoken rule that once you’re done with your food, you don’t loiter,” says Ms Ng. That means having a culture of starting with the first round at a restaurant, before moving on to a cafe, then drinks at a bar, then karaoke, and so on.
Similarly, Mr Faiz Yeo, 25, a third-year student in bio-convergence at Yonsei University in Seoul, says that although he does not envision himself settling down in South Korea, he does not regret his choice of study destination. What he enjoys most is the strong sense of culture and community in South Korean universities, such as the tradition of spring festivals, where K-pop idols headline acts and the student body collectively dresses up in school colours.
The Ngee Ann Polytechnic graduate says her decision to study in France was spontaneous. “I didn’t do any research on Paris, so I came in with a very, very open mind.” She also did not make many local friends, and her social circle was mostly filled with friends from Zimbabwe, Ivory Coast and Mexico. French students were more comfortable speaking their own language, which meant few opportunities to get to know them, she recounts.
“People love to romanticise Paris, but for me, having the Eiffel Tower and the streets of the city in my backyard was something I really enjoyed.” He recounts his struggles with France’s grindingly slow paper-based bureaucracy, the language barrier and chance encounters with Paris’ protest movements. He recalls an instancein which masses took to the streets in 2018 over rising fuel prices and cost of living – while the train’s windows were rolled down.
The bachelor currently resides in Paris – where is he is co-founder of an AI start-up – because he is still in love with the city. For him, getting a bottle of wine for €3 and a baguette for €2, then enjoying a small picnic on a patch of green in the middle of Paris, is an incomparable experience. He opted to pursue his undergraduate studies in business and economics at Lund University in Sweden for one simple reason: “I wanted to go to the NUS of Sweden.”
Learning to present his most outgoing self so that he could close the gap with the often shy and introverted Nordics was an invaluable lesson for him. He says: “You really need to melt them.” A large part of the reason he decided to study in Kajaani was because of a Finn exchange student he met at Nanyang Polytechnic. The two kept in touch over the years and reconnected when Mr Toh visited Finland in 2022. His friend
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