Cultural learnings of Student Exchange Programme

By Gong Pan Pan

Year 3, Business Administration (Accountancy) student



BELGIAN BOND: Pan Pan (second from left) dining with her Belgian sculptor friend, Gigi (far right) along with Gigi's family and friend. In January 2008, I was one of the two NUS students on exchange to the Louvain School of Management under the Université Catholique de Louvain in Belgium, a French-speaking university offering certain selected Masters level business courses conducted in English.

When I was staying on campus at the Prince George's Park Residences in NUS, I encountered many foreign exchange students who were clearly having the time of their lives in Singapore. I was thrilled to be able to embark on this journey that would expose me to a totally different culture and lifestyle, plus I had the chance to visit the friends I have made during their exchange programme in NUS!

In order to satisfy my degree requirement, I selected several finance-related modules at the Masters level, some being under the CEMS MIM program - a global alliance of leading business schools and multi-national companies offering the Master in International Management degree. The module that made the greatest difference in my exchange experience was the CEMS module "International Financial Management". It consisted of theoretical lectures that ran alongside an on-going simulation trading competition developed by the course partner PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) Luxembourg. Our training in financial concepts back at NUS Business School in areas such as matrix analysis helped us in winning the competition. We were also awarded the Jury's Prize which recognises the team that has excelled in learning and made the greatest progression in the course of the game. The two awards made us the second team in the entire history of the "International Financial Management" module to have won both prizes.

Having topped the class with a perfect score in the final exam, I was also offered an internship with PwC, making me the first non-European intern in PwC Luxembourg. For this, I was given the Golden Eagles award in recognition of the consistent, outstanding answers I have provided to all the questions. In one week spent preparing for the exam, I travelled in the day and studied at night, just like what I did during the Easter holiday when I travelled all over Europe in the day, and traded for steel and foreign exchange at night. I also took the opportunity to visit a good friend of mine, Noémie, and her family in Toulouse, France. Noémie is French and we became very good friends when she was doing her exchange in NUS.

To sum up, this student exchange experience has been a good eye opener for me and I was very pleased with the exposure that I have gained through my internship with PwC Luxembourg. I was also glad to be able to work with the various personnel in the company in completing assignments that were integral to the business of the company.

To those who are heading for an exchange programme soon, I would advise them to try to have a good grasp of the language needed in the context, a sound foundation in the area of studies, and go with an open mind to the people and culture of the country. This way, the exchange program would certainly add a whole lot more value to the student, bringing him/her unexpected rewards and surprises along the way.