My exchange semester in Singapore

I'm writing this post while sitting in my parents' front yard enjoying the sun in Don Duong, Vietnam and missing the view from my SUTD hostel room.

In this post, I’m writing about my exchange semester in Autumn 2025 in Singapore at Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD). The goal is to reflect back on my journey, and hopefully offer some insights for anyone who is considering going on a study exchange, or better yet, to Singapore for the exchange.

Why Singapore?

At least 10 people asked me this question both before I went to Singapore and while I was there. I always answer that there were 3 main reasons for me.

First, it's a warm country. After 8 years in Finland I really wanted to spend time in a city full of sunshine and not have to feel anxious when November comes. Second, Singapore has English as one of the main official languages. I did my Bachelor's exchange in Japan and while it was an amazing experience the language barrier was noticeable. Therefore, I wanted to be somewhere where I could understand signs and have conversations with the locals. Third, and honestly one of the most important reasons for me personally, is the food that Singapore has to offer :D If you are my friend, then you'd know I'd always pick a bowl of noodles over pizza.

And as it turned out, these reasons played out beautifully during my exchange. Singapore offered all of this and more.

First week: settling in

I arrived in Singapore after spending a week in Vietnam visiting my family, so the heat was not too overwhelming. I went straight from the airport to my host university, SUTD, on September 9th, 2025. The check-in process was quick and smooth. I received my hostel access card as well as a general access card for the campus.

My room was an en-suite with a private bathroom. It was small, but it came with a single bed with mattress, a wardrobe, a shelf, a table and chair, a drying closet, and a bathroom with a sink, toilet, and standing shower. It was everything I needed. You can see a video of my room tour here. There is a common kitchen on the ground floor of my hostel building but I didn't cook a single meal while I was in Singapore. I survived on the canteen food, food from hawker centers, and sometimes instant noodles. Luckily eating out in Singapore is affordable.

I went to Ikea on the first day to buy blanket, pillow, trash bin, cleaning items, cleaning detergents etc. There is a free shuttle bus to go to Ikea Tampines from Tampines MRT, which made the trip fast and convenient.

The university organized a 2-day orientation for exchange students. Our local student tutors were incredibly helpful and friendly. They showed us around the hot spots in Singapore. I had my first hawker meal (foodcourt) at Century Square with them. For 8SGD (about 5.3 euros) I had a delicious hot meal.

In this first week, I went to ICA to get my student pass finalized. This is one of those administrative tasks that made everything feel officially real.

Daily life in Singapore

A typical weekday vs. weekend

On weekdays, my life mostly revolved around university. I went to classes, worked on assignments or group projects on campus, and ate most of my meals at the university canteens. Evenings were for hobbies. In the first few weeks, I tried out a lot of different activities from the school clubs: dance, archery, taekwondo, sing,...After the try-out period of 2 weeks, I decided to participate in 2 dance clubs from SUTD, one is hiphop-focused and the other one teaches locking and popping. That's why my weekday schedule was usually full: every evening except Tuesday I would dance from 7-10pm with the school club. The free evening on Tuesday was always spent with my friends who also live on campus. We would grab takeaways for dinner, then eat at the 12th floor of the hostel to have a view of the night lights, and watch a movie while eating.

Weekends were for exploring. Every weekend, If I wasn't travelling overseas, I would visit different neighbourhoods, try new food places, or do small trips around Singapore. Singapore is very compact and well connected. My friends and I always had a blast every weekend.

Cost of living (honest breakdown)

Singapore is expensive, but the costs are uneven. Accommodation is the biggest expense. I was lucky to get student housing. I paid 3560 SGD (about 2352 euros) for 3.5 months. Definitely more expensive than student housing in Finland. Student housing is already one of the more affordable options. If you need to pay for private housing in Singapore I believe the cost is even higher.

Public transport is on a fare per distance system. It was quite affordable, for example a trip from my school SUTD - Upper Changi MRT to Chinatown costs 2.10 SGD. Singapore is optimally walkable. There are covered walkways in a lot of places to shield people from the rain and the sun.

Food from SUTD canteen usually goes from 3SGD to 7SGD. At hawker centers most dishes are under 10 SGD. At restaurants, however, note that the service charge (10%) and GST (9%) are usually not included in menu prices, so the final bill can be noticeably higher than the initial numbers.

Culture shocks / tips for Singapore

Calling these "culture shocks" might be an exaggeration, but below are some interesting and sometimes unexpected things I noticed while living in Singapore.

Covered walkways everywhere
Many pedestrian paths are covered, especially around MRT stations and residential areas. This is so practical in a country with frequent rain and strong sun, and it makes walking much more comfortable.

Lack of trash bins
Public trash bins are surprisingly rare, but the streets are clean. You often need to carry your trash with you until you get home or find a bin near bus stations etc. I once had to hold a bubble tea cup for like 2km until I found a bin.

No tissues at food courts or restaurants
Unlike in many countries, tissues or napkins are usually not provided at food courts and sometimes not even at casual restaurants. People often bring their own tissues or buy a small packet. At hawker centres, a packet of tissues is commonly used to reserve a seat. During peak hours, the first thing you do is find a table, and placing tissues on it means the seat is yours.

No free water or tap water by default
Free water is not always offered at food courts or restaurants. You usually need to buy bottled water. Coming from Finland this feels different.

Urban wildlife
Despite being a very urban city, Singapore has a lot of visible wildlife. It’s not unusual to see monkeys, chickens, otters, lizards, or squirrels at parks, nature walks and reservoirs. I've never seen so many monkeys just casually hanging out near a crowded hiking path until Singapore.

Left-side logic everywhere
Singapore drives on the left, walks on the left, and stands on the left side of escalators. This applies quite consistently. Again, coming from Vietnam and Finland where we drive on the right, this took a bit of time to get used to.

Highly multicultural environment
Singapore is very multicultural, and this is visible in everyday life. At MRT stations, announcements and signs are often in four languages: English, Mandarin, Malay, and Tamil. For the first time I learned about Eurasian ethnicity on a trip in Malaysia. That explained all the European-looking people with strong Singaporean accent that I've met in Singapore.

No eating or drinking on the MRT
Eating and drinking are not allowed at MRT stations or on trains, and the rules are clearly stated. It makes the stations spotless, but there were many times where I reached for my water bottle unconsciously and almost committed a crime until my friends reminded me.

Green urbanisation
Trees, plants, and flowers are everywhere. Singapore does a good job integrating greenery into dense urban spaces, making the city so harmonious with nature touch.

Singlish in daily conversations
Singlish is widely used in casual conversations. Phrases like “can lah” or “cannot lah” are very common, and many words are shortened. Acronyms are wild in Singapore. It takes some time to get used to, and sometimes group chat messages felt almost cryptic :D But it's fun once I understood the system better.

Food flavours are more muted than in Malaysia
Compared to Malaysian food, Singaporean food felt slightly more muted in flavour. Still very good, just less intense. I ate the same food in Malaysia like laksa, nasi lemak, satay... and the flavors in Malaysia were a lot more...exploding (?). Anyways I had nothing much to complain about the food in both places, my stomach was so happy the whole time I was there.

Driverless MRT and no fixed timetable
The MRT has no drivers, and there’s no fixed schedule displayed. Instead, screens show how many minutes remain until the next train arrives, which is usually very accurate. In Finland I believe most trains are still run by humans so this was a surprise to me.

Sunset time
It gets dark around 7 p.m. throughout the year. In Vietnam it's usually dark around 5:30 to 6pm. So it was a nice surprise for me that there is more daylight in the evening. The sun going up and getting down at a consistent time did wonders for my sleep while in Singapore.

Extra charges for foreign cards on MRT
Using a foreign bank card for MRT payments can result in small additional charges (if I remember right, 60 cents more per day). So my advice is to load up your Easy Link card. And as soon as you have a Singaporean bank account you can tap in and tap out.

Academic life

Compared to Europe and Finland, the teaching style at SUTD felt more structured and intensive. Classes were more frequent, and continuous assessment played a bigger role throughout the semester. In one of my courses I had three exams in the whole semester, and a final group project. There was a strong emphasis on group projects, presentations, and keeping up with weekly tasks rather than relying heavily on a final exam. Compared to Finland, where teaching often feels more self-directed and flexible, the Singaporean approach felt more guided and fast-paced. Attendance also plays a significant role in the final grade.

To be a hundred percent honest, I didn't go to Singapore to focus on the academics. I wanted to have a good time in a warm country and studying was...not a priority. But in the end I still learned a good amount of interesting facts and knowledge from these courses: Introduction to Psychology, Nuclear History, Human Computer Interaction, Natural Language Processing. The best parts were the fun facts from the professors and the interesting projects with my teammates. Thanks to the study I got to interact more with both exchange and local students.

Travel & Exploration

I forgot to add one important reasons about why Singapore is an excellent exchange destination: It's a central travel hub. SUTD is located on the East Coast of Singapore so it's close to the airport. Changi airport is amazing and I'm not the only one who thinks so: It is rated at 4.7 stars on Google Maps. It has a huge mall (Jewel) right at the airport. Travelling in and out of Singapore is so easy! Singapore has top notch process when it comes to immigration services. I love the facial scan without passport feature. And every time I got back to Singapore from overseas, the machine told me "Welcome home" which was so heartwarming <3 Okay that's enough of my fan-girling for Changi airport.

I was so lucky to have met a local Singaporean friend who gave me tips about cool places in Singapore to visit that are not too mainstream. Every weekend me and my friends would explore a new place. These are the places I visited in Singapore, in time order:

• Chinatown
• Merlion Park
• Gardens by the Bay
• Little India
• Fort Canning Park
• Skydeck observation area during F1
• East Coast Park
• Bukit Timah Summit
• Bedok Reservoir
• MacRitchie Reservoir, Windsor Nature Park & the TreeTop Walk
• Singapore Botanic Gardens
• National Stadium (for Blackpink concert)
• West side of Singapore:
  • NUS
  • NTU
  • The Hive
  • Haw Par Villa
  • Bollywood Farms
• Pulau Ubin (rent a bike and go around the island, I got robbed by a monkey)
• Sentosa
• Sembawang Hot Spring Park
• Sembawang Park
• East Coast Lagoon
• Orchard Road

…and probably a few other places I’ve forgotten.

I also took the opportunity to travel around a little bit. I was in Johor Bahru (Malaysia) on my first weekend. This is basically Tallinn for the Singaporeans.

Then I went to Taiwan on a solo trip. I visited Taipei, Yehliu park, Jiufen, Shifen... They were all so beautiful! And the food got me dreaming about going back there to eat an authentic bowl of beef noodle soup again.

At the end of October, my boyfriend flew from Finland to Singapore to visit me. It's recess week in Singapore so I had a whole week free of study. We explored Singapore together for a bit, then we spent time in Perth (Australia) for a few days, visiting my long-term friends, where I saw the most beautiful beach on the planet. We took many selfies with quokkas on Rottnest island and we rented bikes to go around the island, it was stunning.

After that we went to Bali to relax and I saw a volcano for the first time!

I went to my home city for a long weekend in Dalat (Vietnam) in mid November for my friend's wedding. I brought along my Korean exchange student friend and we did glamping in the mountain of Dalat. What a cool (literally) experience!

After that, at the end of November, I went to Kuala Lumpur and Malacca in Malaysia with my friend from Vietnam. To me Malaysia is basically Singapore but cheaper. The country was surprisingly affordable.

My 3.5 months in Singapore was never boring because there was always something going on, on a daily basis.

Was It Worth It?

Yes, absolutely. Even though academics weren’t my main focus going in, I still learned a lot and enjoyed the different teaching style. More importantly, the exchange gave me new friendships, new insights about myself because I learned about what I actually liked and not, countless experiences both in Singapore and while travelling around the region. Living in such a multicultural, well-organised, and food-loving city suited me so well.

In 2019 when I was about to graduate from my Bachelor's program, I wanted to take a gap year or something similar to have a long break. But then Covid hit in 2020, the world froze, travelling was impossible, I never had the chance to do what I wanted. This study exchange was me fulfilling the promise to my younger self and I am so happy I got the opportunity to do this. I am grateful to be in Finland where the labor law is strong and companies grant study leave for their employees. Also grateful for my employer to have been so supportive of my study leave. Grateful for my home university - Aalto University for providing me with this opportunity and gave me a scholarship to help with the expenses of a study exchange. Grateful for my family who has always been there for me. Grateful for my past self to work hard and save up so I can go for months without an income. Grateful for my partner who supports me in all fronts. Grateful for old friends who check up on me. Grateful for new friends that I made along the way.

If you’re considering a study exchange in Singapore, I hope this post gives you the confidence to take the leap. Cheers!

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