The Prince of Songkla University (PSU) is a state university located in Southern Thailand. It was founded in 1967 and has approximately 35,000 students. The university has 5 different units (Phuket, Hatyai, Pattani, Trang and Surattani). The Phuket campus, where I will be studying, has about 3,500 students. Plus an additional one starting from October 3rd :D For more information on the university check out the PSU website at http://www.international.psu.ac.th!
According to the Asia Exchange website exchange students are recommended to choose 4-6 subjects. The available subjetcs can roughly be divided into three groups:
- Business administration (eg. Marketing, Economics, Management)
- Thai culture and language (eg. Thai food preparation, Thai language)
- Tourism (eg. Tourism Planning and Development, Tour Operations Project, Restaurant Management)
The full course list can be found on the Asia Exchange website.
Their course list also was the reason why I decided to study at the Prince of Songkla University because I want to transfer as many credits as possible to my home institution in Germany. Before deciding at what university you want to study it is useful to compare the course catalogue... if I had studied at the Kasetsart Universtiy in Bangkok for example, only 1 course could have been used for my Bachelor's degree in Germany. However, the course list in Phuket matches with my studies in Germany so I can transfer credits for at least 4 courses!
However, there were some changes of the course list during my semester in Phuket so I couldn't take some courses that I had planned to take. Luckily I was able to make another arrangement with my university in Passau so that I could still transfer credits even though I took another course.
Learning Agreements
To make sure the credits will be transfered you should ask your home institutions for details before your departure. At the university of Passau for example you need to get learning agreements BEFORE you start studying abroad otherwise the credits will not be transfered. My university asked me for course descriptions of the classes I intend to take and then they filled out a learning agreement that I need to give to my lecturer in Phuket. In the end of my semester the lecturer then has to fill in my grade and I have to take the learning agreement back to my home institution in Germany so that they can transfer the credits...
So far getting the learning agreements hasn't been a problem for me... with the course descriptions on the Asia Exchange website I could easily get learning agreements for the following courses:
- Principles of Marketing
- Human Resource Management
- Strategic Management
- International Economics
When it became clear that I wouldn't be able to take HRM and International Economics I could still get a learning agreement for International Business which I took instead. Even though I was almost 2 months late to ask for a learning agreement, a nice letter to my university where I explained the situation helped me to still get it :)
