Experience in Student Exchange Program in Malaysia : University Malaya

S'up all...

In this post I'm going to share with you my own experience about following student exchange program in University Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. I was in this program last year (2016/2017) for only 1 semester from August 2016 until January 2017. Before we get to the topic let me tell you the story how i ended up in this program. Like I said in the first post ("Know Me More"), currently I am a student in Economic and Business faculty, majoring in management. And the thing is I'm in the international class. As a student of international class, its a compulsory for us to do exchange program. My university provide several options of other universities outside Indonesia (actually only 3 countries in the option which are Malaysia, Korea, and Japan). By the way, focus on words Provide Options, not Provide Accommodation or Provide Free Cost, so it means we gotta do this exchange program by our own money, "That's Insane!".. Yes it is. Long story short, I wouldn't be able to take the program in Korea and Japan, first reason is because my mark can't fulfill the standard and the second reason is because i can't afford to live there. so the only country option would be Malaysia. for Malaysia, my uni gave us 3 options of uni ; first is UNIMAS (University Malaysia Sarawak) in Sarawak, UM (University Malaya) in Kuala Lumpur and UNIMAP (University Malaysia Perlis) in Perlis. first I gave a thought about UNIMAS, but I think it's too near from my city (it's only about 6 hours by bus). I wanted to live in a very different environment and further than that, so I crossed out UNIMAS. I already crossed out UNIMAP, no particular reason just don't like it. so from these long journey it brought me to the one and only option, UM. Not only because of personal reason, I chose it because of several logical reason too. first, UM known as number one public university in Malaysia at the time, which mean the quality of the uni doesn't need to be questioned anymore, and second, student exchange program is aimed for student especially one who doesn't familiar enough with English to learn it by applied it in the daily life. Korea and Japan are not countries with English as their daily language, but its a yes for Malaysia. even though most of them using some Malaylish, but we still can develop our English because the environment knows the language well.

Well that's all for the reason and the story behind how I can ended up in the exchange student program, now lets get started for the experience in Malaysia. I went to Malaysia on August 2016, good thing about being an International student in

UM is they provide everything such as medical check-up, Visa, insurance, etc. so we don't need to take care of them separately. There were 11 persons from my university including me, 5 males and 6 females. 10 of us decided to rent an apartment (including me of course), because we got a very bad picture about the dorm and one single person decided to go to the dorm. Anyway guys, don't do something like we did, 10 people in one apartment is too crowded and it violated the rule. we got a very classy apartment with 4 bedrooms, 1 master bedroom, 2 double bed bedroom, and 1 single bed bedroom, so the total person must be only 7 persons, how did we endure with the situation? no need to ask and it's not only problem with the room but also emotion. we are all classmates, so we only knew each other by looking their behavior in the classroom, but not their behavior in daily life, so the apartment situation was like putting 10 minds with their own egos in one head. Lets continue, I said before that we all got a bad picture before flied to Malaysia, and actually our expectation with the real life condition is quite similar. dorm for exchange student in UM called KK10, it is located in the end of the campus where we go through a very 'slopy' way (uphill). it's not really bad actually, but the idea of sharing fridge between people we are not familiar with and monkey that can suddenly appear in the dorm environment made thankful for my apartment. But, if you have more budget, you can rent International house, which is the best, because it's a very complete house with a good environment.

UM provide several free buses for the students. there are 5 bus lanes, which symbolize by A, B, C, D, and E. I only knew about B, C, and D.if I'm not mistaken, bus B is the bus to KK10 (uphill), bus D is the bus to the International house, and bus C is the bus to outside campus. I went to the campus by Bus C or Uber/Grab. my apartment (called Saville @The Park, very nice and classy one. we rent it for RM 3800 or about $907 per month) are located in uphill and it's really far from the street that be passed by bus C, it means that if I want to go to the campus without any transportation cost (free) i have to walk downhill for about 15-20 minutes. but sometimes when I was really lazy to walk, I took uber or grab.

As a exchange student, we can freely choose what subject that we interested to no matter what faculty is it. so if you are in language major, its okay if you want to take psychology or math or music subject as long as the subject is on the list of the subjects that provided by the uni to the exchange student. I took 4 subjects in UM, which were Social Psychology, Economic Development in Southeast Asia, Performing Arts in Southeast Asia, and Taklempong. I heard from my professor that the study about gender in UM is the best in Asia, I don't know if that's only an advertising words or it's really true. 

Now about the cafeteria. I usually ate in cafeteria near ISC (International Student Centre), they provide many kinds of food in the range of the price between RM 3 to RM 15 (about $0.7 to $3.5). in here I learned something that can't be found in my daily life in Indonesia, which was get rid of the dishes by ourselves. I can't just let it in the table, because no one gonna get rid of it for us, but if you come to Indonesia, you just sit on your chair and the waitress will take care of it. 

I was really impressed by the lecturers there. unlike in my uni all the lecturer really taught us in a very good way. they arrange the ideas of the lesson and explained it really well. I could easily understand everything they taught. UM also provide a very complete facilities for their student, including a very comfortable library. I spent most of my time while waiting for the next class or searching for any references and information. my friend, Phoebe called it "A very dope place". to be honest with you, I got several friends from the exchange student, but At the time I wasn't confident especially when communicating with English. but there is one girl that keep a good communication with me. because of her, I can be confident enough with my English communication skill. We met in Social Psychology class and became one group for presentation task. She is my best friend and we still in a good communication up until now. Her name is Narumi Kano, she is Japanese and in the same age with me. I remember that she always said this when introduced herself with Malay "nama saya Narumi, saya orang Jepun, saya cantik", which means "My name is Narumi, I am a Japanese, and I am beautiful" in English.

Last thing I want to share about are several events that held by UM especially to International student. there are activity like field trip and Gala Dinner. Field trip is an activity where we go other places to observe and study about something (of course.. everyone already knew it). UM provide several options for field trip, but I already forgot about the options, I remember only Port Dickson (because I went here on my field trip) and Malacca. For International student there is also a gala dinner, this is a formal dinner where we can enjoy shows that done by the International students themselves such as singing or dancing, etc. I went to the gala dinner and the theme for the dinner was "Glittering Gala", and for sure I really enjoyed everything and I can socialize by my friends there.

Hmm.. I think nothing more to be explained. the conclusion is it was a very good exper

ience and UM is an excellent place  to do an exchange program. Trust me they don't pay me for doing this writing hahaha. Thank you for reading and if you find it useful please share it. Thank You

If you by any chance want to apply to the UM Exchange Program, follow this link :

http://isc.um.edu.my/

If you still curious about UM, follow this link :

https://www.um.edu.my/admissions/international-students