The last couple of days in Phuket passed incredibly quickly. Sairozi and I went to the beach almost every day and we also visited some places that we didn't have time to go to before. We saw Wat Chalong, which is a large temple about 20 minutes from the university and a famous tourist destination in Phuket. Afterwards we passed Rawai beach, which was a bit disappointing, because it's was quite small and dirty. But if you drive from Rawai to Promthep cape (I think, that's what it's called, but I don't remember exactly) and then to Kata Noi beach you pass many small beaches with white sand that are great to hang out and swim. During low season they must be great to visit, but since we saw them during high season they were extremely crowded.
Unfortunately our time in Phuket passed so quickly and out of a sudden it was already time to leave. On our way to the airport we took the local bus to Central Festival and then took the airport shuttle bus from there (it leaves once an hour until 5pm and costs 85 Baht/person). It takes about 1 hour to go from Central Festival to the airport.
I must admit that it was kind of sad to leave the island because I've had a great time there. I liked the university but Phuket also offers lots of other things. The beaches are great and even though it's a famous tourist destination the village where we lived wasn't touristic at all. Prices there are still affordable and the atmosphere is really relaxed. And in case you want to go out Pathong is only a 15 minute drive away. My semester there was a great experience and I would really recommend it to everyone who is interested in spending some time abroad.
Saturday 28 January 2012
Wednesday 18 January 2012
Final Exams
Only one day after we returned from Singapore I had my final exams. Even though I didn't have much time to study before and between the exams I think everything went very well. The exams weren't too difficult and hopefully we'll get the results soon.
On the 12th after I wrote my last exam we had the farewell party organized by the university. Everyone got the shirt that we actually were supposed to get in the beginning of our stay (for future PSU students: choose 1 size smaller, because those shirts are huge!) and a cd with photos. Delicious and most importantly FREE food was also prepared for us and everyone had a nice evening.
Most students left soon after the final exams, but Sairozi and I still stay until the 22nd of January. It's nice to have some holidays at the end of the stay to visit some places and beaches that we didn't get to see during the semester.
On the 12th after I wrote my last exam we had the farewell party organized by the university. Everyone got the shirt that we actually were supposed to get in the beginning of our stay (for future PSU students: choose 1 size smaller, because those shirts are huge!) and a cd with photos. Delicious and most importantly FREE food was also prepared for us and everyone had a nice evening.
Most students left soon after the final exams, but Sairozi and I still stay until the 22nd of January. It's nice to have some holidays at the end of the stay to visit some places and beaches that we didn't get to see during the semester.
Thursday 12 January 2012
Singapore II
After spending three days with Sven from couchsurfing we had to move, because he had another friend coming to his place. Luckily we found another host via couchsurfing so we moved there. We stayed quite close to the beach which was really nice. Apart from the beach we also visited some other sights in Singapore.
Chinatown was lots of shopping and food. The place was extremely crowded but there were beautiful lights because Chinese New Year is coming soon. What I especially liked were the old and colourful buildings there and thaqt you could try lots of new food.
Little India wasn't as spectacular as Chinatown but still had its own charm. You can find some super delicious Indian food there and afterwards go Sari-shopping. I find Indian cloths extremely beautiful and in little India you can find all kinds of different styles and colours. There is also a small Hindu temple that you can visit.
I didn't spend much time in Arab street but there was a great mosque that would definitely be worth visiting. Apart from this I've heard that they sell some of the best food in town there.
We also went to the beach at East Coast Park. You could rent bycicles and roller blades there, it has a beach volleyball field and you can also go swimming, even though the view was not that nice, cause you couldn't see the horizon due to the fact that the sea was full of ships.
We had already visited Marina Bay Sands during our first stay but the downtown district is still one of my favourite places in Singapore, especially at night you have a great view with all the lights. On my last evening I went with a friend to the Grand Theatre there to watch the Musical wicked, which I totally recommend. Even though this Musical is only there for a couple of weeks, there are definitely other interesting shows coming to town soon.
For New Year we went to Clark Quay, which is the party and bar area in Singapore. It was extremely crowded but still fun. I especially like hanging out at "the bridge" which is very famous in the couchsurfing community. For New Year people were bringing spraying foam at each other there ant in the end everyone smelled like the spray you use for toilets.
Chinatown was lots of shopping and food. The place was extremely crowded but there were beautiful lights because Chinese New Year is coming soon. What I especially liked were the old and colourful buildings there and thaqt you could try lots of new food.
Little India wasn't as spectacular as Chinatown but still had its own charm. You can find some super delicious Indian food there and afterwards go Sari-shopping. I find Indian cloths extremely beautiful and in little India you can find all kinds of different styles and colours. There is also a small Hindu temple that you can visit.
I didn't spend much time in Arab street but there was a great mosque that would definitely be worth visiting. Apart from this I've heard that they sell some of the best food in town there.
We also went to the beach at East Coast Park. You could rent bycicles and roller blades there, it has a beach volleyball field and you can also go swimming, even though the view was not that nice, cause you couldn't see the horizon due to the fact that the sea was full of ships.
We had already visited Marina Bay Sands during our first stay but the downtown district is still one of my favourite places in Singapore, especially at night you have a great view with all the lights. On my last evening I went with a friend to the Grand Theatre there to watch the Musical wicked, which I totally recommend. Even though this Musical is only there for a couple of weeks, there are definitely other interesting shows coming to town soon.
For New Year we went to Clark Quay, which is the party and bar area in Singapore. It was extremely crowded but still fun. I especially like hanging out at "the bridge" which is very famous in the couchsurfing community. For New Year people were bringing spraying foam at each other there ant in the end everyone smelled like the spray you use for toilets.
Sunday 25 December 2011
Christmas in Singapore
About a week before the holidays we decided to go to Singapore for Christmas and New Year. Because Singapore is one of the most expensive countries in Southeast Asia and since we wanted to meet some new people, I decided to try couchsurfing. This is a website where people from all over the world offer their couch or a spare mattress to travelers. After sending about 40 messages to people in Singapore, we were lucky that Sven (from Norway, but living in Singapore) offered his couch for the first couple of days of our stay.
We arrived there at the 23rd in the late evening and apart from sleeping we didn't do much. But the next day we prepared for the Christmas party that took place in the evening. I cooked a curry while Sairozi and Sven made 2 different kinds of cookies and a cake. It turned out super-delicious and I ate way too much during the party.
The next day some couchsurfers had organised a tour through the city. At the moment there is a campaign to protect elephants in Singapore and you can find elephant figures all around the city. The aim of our tour was to see as many different elephants as possible. Here you can see my favourites:
We arrived there at the 23rd in the late evening and apart from sleeping we didn't do much. But the next day we prepared for the Christmas party that took place in the evening. I cooked a curry while Sairozi and Sven made 2 different kinds of cookies and a cake. It turned out super-delicious and I ate way too much during the party.
The next day some couchsurfers had organised a tour through the city. At the moment there is a campaign to protect elephants in Singapore and you can find elephant figures all around the city. The aim of our tour was to see as many different elephants as possible. Here you can see my favourites:
Thursday 22 December 2011
Course evaluation
Today was the last class before the holidays and the exams and it's about time to give some grades. As students we're getting grades all the time, but today it's the other way round.
Thai language (C+):
In the beginning of my stay I found this course very usefull, because we learned many words that we could use in everyday life such as different dishes, fruits or numbers. What I didn't like was that within 3 months our teacher changed 3 times and they all had very different teaching methods. Personally I found it the hardest with the second teacher so after studying Thai for 1,5 months my motivation was lost. Even though I enjoyed the 3rd teachers classes I decided to drop out of this class 2 weeks before the christmas holidays, due to the fact that I will be unable to attend the final exam.
Marketing (B-):
I like the subject so I was quite motivated to take Marketing. The teacher was trying really hard to make everyone understand the subject, but unfortuntely the English of some of the Thai students was still quite limited so it often took a lot of time to finish a topic. That made it a bit boring sometimes. Another thing I didn't like was, that we were supposed to have a quiz on every topic, but often the quizzes were canceled or postponed. The course syllabus said that only the ten best scores of the quizzes would count for our final grade so less quizzes means that we cannot improve our grade, if we didn't do well in one of the quizzes.
Strategic Management (B+):
Looking back at this course I must say that it was one of my favourites, even though I wasn't so sure about it in the first place. I liked that we had group discussions and short presentations instead of quizzes, because we could practice our presentation skills and got feedback afterwards. The pace was a little faster than Marketing, which was good as well. During the last two weeks we played a simulation game during the classes. In the beginning I was a bit sceptical but that quickly changed and I got really motivated to win this game with my group. In the end we got 2nd out of 8 which is not too bad either :)
International Business (B):
I give this class a B because we were talking about a lot of things that I've heard before so sometimes it wasn't as interesting for me than it could have been. However, some of my friends said it was their favourite class. It was definitely the one were we had to do the most work. 3 case studies, lots of homework, inclass exercises and at least 1 quiz per week made sure that we were busy during the semester.
Thai language (C+):
In the beginning of my stay I found this course very usefull, because we learned many words that we could use in everyday life such as different dishes, fruits or numbers. What I didn't like was that within 3 months our teacher changed 3 times and they all had very different teaching methods. Personally I found it the hardest with the second teacher so after studying Thai for 1,5 months my motivation was lost. Even though I enjoyed the 3rd teachers classes I decided to drop out of this class 2 weeks before the christmas holidays, due to the fact that I will be unable to attend the final exam.
Marketing (B-):
I like the subject so I was quite motivated to take Marketing. The teacher was trying really hard to make everyone understand the subject, but unfortuntely the English of some of the Thai students was still quite limited so it often took a lot of time to finish a topic. That made it a bit boring sometimes. Another thing I didn't like was, that we were supposed to have a quiz on every topic, but often the quizzes were canceled or postponed. The course syllabus said that only the ten best scores of the quizzes would count for our final grade so less quizzes means that we cannot improve our grade, if we didn't do well in one of the quizzes.
Strategic Management (B+):
Looking back at this course I must say that it was one of my favourites, even though I wasn't so sure about it in the first place. I liked that we had group discussions and short presentations instead of quizzes, because we could practice our presentation skills and got feedback afterwards. The pace was a little faster than Marketing, which was good as well. During the last two weeks we played a simulation game during the classes. In the beginning I was a bit sceptical but that quickly changed and I got really motivated to win this game with my group. In the end we got 2nd out of 8 which is not too bad either :)
International Business (B):
I give this class a B because we were talking about a lot of things that I've heard before so sometimes it wasn't as interesting for me than it could have been. However, some of my friends said it was their favourite class. It was definitely the one were we had to do the most work. 3 case studies, lots of homework, inclass exercises and at least 1 quiz per week made sure that we were busy during the semester.
Monday 12 December 2011
Bureaucracy
The last week has kept me really busy. As I have written before my home university requires me to make learning agreements BEFORE I start studying abroad in order to transfer the credits for the courses I attend. However, since the classes I intended to take were sceduled at the same time I decided to take International Business instead of Human Resource Management. Unfortunatley I didn't have a learning agreement for that class, which got me a little stressed out last week. In the end I wrote I really nice letter to my university begging them to give me a learning agreement even though I was 2 months late... and it worked! Two days later they had send it to my mom's address, which means I don't have to take the same course again in Germany :D
Apart from the learning agreement more good news awaited me last week. We got our grades for the midterm exams and they turned out really well. Unfortunately I didn't have much time to celebrate because back home a couple of case studies waited to be finished.
I must say that I'm pretty surprised how much work needs to be done at this university compared to my courses in Germany, where there usually is one final exam which counts for 100% of the grade. At PSU the exams (each, midterm and final exam) usually count for 20-30% of the grade. Apart from this we need to submit at least 1 case study and we get grades for either group discussions and presentations or quizzes (about 10-12! per subject). The Thais really know how to keep someone busy!
Apart from the learning agreement more good news awaited me last week. We got our grades for the midterm exams and they turned out really well. Unfortunately I didn't have much time to celebrate because back home a couple of case studies waited to be finished.
I must say that I'm pretty surprised how much work needs to be done at this university compared to my courses in Germany, where there usually is one final exam which counts for 100% of the grade. At PSU the exams (each, midterm and final exam) usually count for 20-30% of the grade. Apart from this we need to submit at least 1 case study and we get grades for either group discussions and presentations or quizzes (about 10-12! per subject). The Thais really know how to keep someone busy!
Saturday 3 December 2011
Midterm exams
During the last week of November we had our midterm exams, which count for about 30% of our final grade. So I was quite busy studying. Luckily the exams turned out to be not too difficult and I'm looking forward to getting the results. Apart from the midterm exams we have to submit several case studies (1 for Marketing, 3 for International Business and 1 for Strategic Management) that kept me busy even after the exams.
However, last week a friend of mine visited us in Phuket so I had an excuse to postpone working on the case studies and do some fun stuff instead :) We went to play badminton at the university and spend lots of time at the beach, which was heaps of fun. I also found some time to make an advent calendar for Sairozi and I bought myself a small one at the Big C supermarket. It was even made in Germany!
However, last week a friend of mine visited us in Phuket so I had an excuse to postpone working on the case studies and do some fun stuff instead :) We went to play badminton at the university and spend lots of time at the beach, which was heaps of fun. I also found some time to make an advent calendar for Sairozi and I bought myself a small one at the Big C supermarket. It was even made in Germany!
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