Details

• Singapore
• BaWiSo-23
• Undergraduate
• WS 2025
• Time spent at the partner university: 5 months

1. Preparation

Start preparing early, start looking for apartments (! there is no campus living at SMU), try different websites or ask peers that have attended SMU already. The earlier you get your apartment the easier and less stressful its going to be throughout the preparation. Also try finding an apartment near SMU Campus, the public transport is great but you probably don´t want to spend 45min on the metro every day.

2. Accommodation

There is no living on campus. I found an apartment through flat.io (almost same as airbnb), it was a Room near River Valley. Prepare to spend a lot of money and don´t expect to live in an apartment by yourself. I shared my apartment with 4 other people, but in hindsight I am very glad I did, these were the nicest people I met in Singapore. If youre not comfortable sharing an apartment with strangers, find some of your SMU peers that are going to Singapore and ask them to share an apartment. As I said earlier try finding an apartment within 30min radius to SMU and dont expect to walk to Uni (its so hot in Singapore you wont)

3. Academic life at host university

The Campus is great, its beautiful, the library is great and the food is awesome (theres a foodcourt with all kinds of very cheap food from around the world). The academic culture is very competitive, youre getting graded on a bellcurve, so its basically everybody against everybody. Still the students are very nice and curios about foreigners so dont worry about finding friends in class. The teaching style is different than at WU, participation in class is much more important and there is no room to miss a class (not even once if youre not sick). Courses are difficult, but if you take your time you can find some easier ones and luckily (thanks to IO and ÖH) we get 7.5 ect per course!!

5. Every day life in the host country

The public transport is great, the busses and metro are going basically everywhere and if not uber (grab) is very affordable. Singapore is one of the safest cities in the world and it is noticeable, I hardly ever felt as safe as in Singapore (also heard that from my female peers), I was lucky enough to live in a condo with gym, pool and tennis courts so I did a lot of sports but there are also opportunities on campus (a gym and a lot of sport student clubs). There are also a lot of student events and if you enjoy going out you will be happy in Singapore (a lot of famous clubs and good bars)

6. Testimonial

I gained friends for life, met people from all over the world and experienced new cultures, a lot of good foods and a lot of late nights