Deciding to pursue my studies in NUS was an enormous challenge. Back home in Mauritius, NUS is considered to be one of the toughest universities to enter as only the best and most hardworking students are admitted. When I attended the NUS briefing that was advertised in the local newspaper, at first it was like any other university promotional talk. But I emerged from the briefing that day fascinated by the accommodation, loans, and grants NUS was offering as well as the description of life at NUS. This very rare proposal by a university to supply study loans and enable students to get internationally recognised degrees was an opportunity I could not miss. So I began the process of applying to NUS and trying to find as much information as I could about Singapore. The more research I did, the more I was encouraged to come to Singapore as everyone kept saying that the country was a very safe place (i.e. no wars or riots, nice and well-disciplined, etc.).

To my great astonishment, I received an acceptance letter a few months later, and so began a long journey to an unknown country. Unfortunately, my first impressions of Singapore were not positive. When the plane landed at Changi, it was raining very heavily, and I thought: “What a gloomy country!” As I did not know how to get to NUS, I took a taxi to Kent Ridge. Upon reaching NUS, I tried to find out about admission and accommodation procedures. People were helpful in giving me directions to the Administration Building. Nevertheless, I got lost and spent hours searching for the right place. When at last I reached Administration, the office seemed very chaotic, and I had to wait a long time before I was told I had to go through matriculation (until then, I did not even know what matriculation was) and to open a bank account, amidst other things. My next stop was the Office of Student Affairs, where to my great relief, I finally found out about my lodgings for the academic year.

When I reached my hall of residence, everything there was alien to me. Everyone was rushing around and going about orientation, etc. But being a very open-minded person, I knew that nothing was going to be easy in a new country and I wanted to make my stay in Singapore a fruitful one. I either had to get involved in the life here, or isolate myself and suffer. So I decided to participate, mix around, and get to know people.

The hall orientation programme helped a lot by making me feel that I was not the only foreign student here and that there were others who were undergoing the same things as I was. My first friend was a girl from China. Although we had a language problem, we managed to get along very well and I felt better and better as the days went by.

But the overall atmosphere at NUS was not what I had initially expected: foreigners like me were left out most of the time and it was very hard for me to discover why this was happening. Local students just did not seem to want to mingle with us. For instance, there were language difficulties. So many people kept speaking a dialect that we foreigners could not understand. As hall residents come from all over the world and each person has a different accent, it was hard trying to figure out what others were saying.

Moreover, the hall culture did not seem encouraging to foreigners: no one wanted to entrust us foreigners with responsibilities for any of the organised activities. Although I hate to say it, I felt then that no matter what a foreigner said or did, local students considered themselves as superior. And as more and more foreign students felt left out, there was a natural tendency to band together with others in the same situation.

Despite these trends, I was determined not to give up trying to integrate into hall life. To prove to other hall residents that I was capable of accomplishing as much as they could, I volunteered myself for various positions when selections for hall committees began. I got accepted in various committees and tried my very best to carry out the responsibilities that I was given. It was only after the first semester that people around me realised: “Hey, this is someone who can do things.” Then they started to wave to me at breakfast, dinner, or whenever they saw me in the corridor. It was wonderful to finally make so many new friends, and most important, to have them accept me in their circle of friends.

Besides getting accustomed to living in the halls, there was, in addition, faculty life to deal with. The Singapore education system is very different from what I was used to. Not only is the pace of life here amazingly fast, I also had to contend with lectures, tutorials, labs, recitations, and extracurricular activities. Again, I faced communication difficulties trying to understand the different accents of teaching staff and fellow students. Most of the time, the courses sounded like Greek to me.

Although I have been very stressed trying to adapt to new norms and cope with so many things, I must admit that I have never regretted coming to NUS. In my stay here, I have grown much as a person, having learnt many things, taken up activities, and watched others doing things I would not have otherwise encountered, as well as made many new friends. Life at NUS may be very hectic for a foreign student; but when one learns how to cope, one can only emerge as a winner!