By Alice Lando, BA International Business Management
Having reached the end of the first semester of my exchange year at the Nanyang Technological University of Singapore, I have found myself looking back at the journey so far. If you intend to do an exchange, and I highly recommend it, you should know that there will definitely be ups and downs, it won’t be all about travelling and meeting new people. 
I was lucky enough to meet a group of friends from all around the world on my third day here that eventually stuck as a group till the end of the semester, when it came the time for very sad goodbyes as most of them were here for only one semester. With this group – we called it “No Spice” because everything in Asia is spicy and we had no tolerance for it – I discovered Singapore, travelled to Bali, went to Halloween at the Universal Studios and many more unforgettable experiences. We are still in touch and planning the next meetups. We even made a t-shirt and a book with all our names, details, fun facts and pictures 🙂
Given the location of Singapore, there are plenty of opportunities to travel around South East Asia, so far I have been to Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and Cambodia.
In regards to my University experience, the Singaporean system comes with an intense workload and it puts students in competition with each other. I was able to keep up with the materials but I had moments where I felt the need to take a step back and focus on myself when the workload was becoming too overwhelming. Business classes are 3 or 4 hours long seminars, there is a 
lot of preparation work before class and assessments are more frequent compared to what I had in Sheffield in my first year. Moreover, all five modules I took in the first semester had group-project that counted for a major part of my final grade. It was a demanding first semester but I do have to say that the topics discussed were based on real-life situations and therefore overall very useful. 
I have just started the second semester but I already look back with nostalgia at all the beautiful memories I have made. I hope this second semester will be as great as the first one and I am looking forward to being back in Sheffield next September.