Mr. Sho Niboshi, a first year student of the Master Program of the Graduate School of Computer Science and Engineering at UoA has finished his three-month research (from October 1 - December 31) at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore on UoA's International Short-Term Study Program for Academic Year 2008.
Here are reports on his research and daily life in Singapore.
After finishing his three-month research at Nanyang Technological University
I completed the three months of my internship program on December 31, 2008. There were many difficulties living and studying in a foreign country, but this time gave me a lot of valuable experiences and opportunities to meet many people in this faraway place.
The beginning of this program started October 1st when I went to Singapore. In advance of that, I was required to submit documents for this program. The paperwork in English required lots of effort. It started with sending e-mail, filling in application forms and doing other paperwork, for admission to the internship program, a contract with real estate agent for my student apartment and applying for a short-stay pass. Such jobs needed unusual words to complete official documents, and I had a hard time with these. It became a good lesson for my writing and reading such kinds of documents in English, and it gave me confidence that I could do this work by myself.
During the stay, my main work at Nanyang Technological University (NTU) should have been doing research for T-Engine as an internship student, but I also took some short term lectures at the middle and end of December. These were my first lectures that were provided in English while overseas. My impression of such "true English class" was difficult because of a lack in technical vocabulary. One of these lectures that was relevant to computer technology could be easily understandable with familiar words; however, in another lecture, some technical words that were in different fields were necessary for understanding the contents of class, e.g., the terms of mathematics and engineering. For that reason, the comprehension of that class might be not good; however, touching different fields and experiencing overseas classes was beneficial for me.
By the way, I have rented one room in a student hostel near the NTU campus, and one of the students in the same lab stayed in the same apartment building. We usually talked on our way home. He was a good guy and I heard some interesting talk about China and the master's program at NTU from him. I have recently received his e-mail that reported he had gone to Malaysia and had a good trip the end of the previous year.
Because I was busy with internship research, in the middle of month, chances to talk with other students were reduced. However, we sometimes took a meal in a canteen and played tennis on campus of NTU.
Also, I was lucky that the internship term covered December 25th, Christmas, and I was able to attend the Christmas party at the lab. This laboratory party was small, but I was satisfied with eating turkey and Christmas cake and enjoyed the time with lab friends.
My weekends were usually spent walking around the city and sightseeing. I was helped people who were in the lab who recommended some interesting places in Singapore for visiting, but visiting all the recommended places takes some extra time. I am hoping to go to Singapore again to complete visiting in the near future. By the way, the last place I visited in Singapore was Chinatown to buy souvenirs for my family in Japan, where my adviser told me was the best place for getting souvenirs in Singapore.
Those three months passed really fast, and so I wanted to remain in that country some more months. Not only the research project was productive activity, but also learning something about the cultures, speaking with many people and listening to different English were valuable experiences for me. When I went to Singapore with poor English and without knowing about this overseas at first, I had some trouble almost every day and every time. However, after a few weeks, I could live in Singapore without any big problem, and the fact that I have completed three months of the program now gives me much confidence.
Now, I have completed my internship program by finishing this report. Through this program, I had a lot of valuable experiences with many good people from different cultures in this foreign country. Meeting with good "friends" was the most fortunate thing for me. I would like to close by saying "Thank you" to all the members who have supported me during this project.
A regular report from Nanyang Technological University
November 7, 2008
I have lived in Singapore since Oct 1st, and it has already reached one month. I am finally getting used to life in Singapore. Now, I would like to talk about my days of overseas study in Singapore.
Unlike Japan has four seasons, Singapore has only one season with high temperature and humidity. By reason of its location on a global map, I think some people have images that Singapore is a very hot weather area, but it is actually not. It is cooler than the summer in Japan. For me, the problem is inside of a building rather than the outside, because the temperature inside in Singapore is kept to be over-cool condition. The temperature between the inside and the outside is very different. When we walk around a town or a campus, we absolutely don't need long-sleeved jacket or T-shirt. However, we need these clothes to stay long in this over-cool inside area. This difference of temperature affects me and I am just in poor health.
In these three months of overseas study program, I join an internship program in NTU. I would like to talk about NTU in next topic. You might not know the name of this university, but NTU is a famous university in Singapore, and it has a very large campus. By the way, what do you think about a large campus? In my case, I only had good images for a large campus but now I have almost bad images for that. I guess it is because of my first day in NTU. On that day, I needed to visit some centers and divisions to complete some approvals of my stay in NTU. Perhaps, many readers have already realized what I am going to say. Probably you are right. I got lost on my way to all places in the campus! I walked around this large campus for three hours. That was a terrible day.
I described the bad point of the large campus at first. Next, I am going to talk about good points of NTU. My favorite thing in this university is canteens. In the large campus, there are more than ten canteens and many kinds of foods are provided in these places. For example, there is Chinese food, Indian food, Western food, Muslim food and also Japanese food. My favorite one is Nan from Indian food which is served hot from the oven.
The last topic is my life in Singapore. Fortunately, I was able to rent a flat in a student apartment with short-term lease. This apartment is located about 15 minutes away from NTU by bus. So, my day begins with taking bus in front of the apartment to go to NTU. After the bus stop at NTU, I walk to CHiPES at Techno Plaza in this university. CHiPES, Centere for High Performance Embedded Systems, is a technological research center in NTU. I study and research about T-engine in Embedded System with my advisers and other friendly internship students there. I spend most of weekdays on studying. I spend some of the rest time on having my favorite meal or having a chat with other students. I go playing tennis a few times. On a weekend, I enjoyed a holiday by visiting some famous places, going shopping and eating country foods.
As you can see, I am having great time here in Singapore. In my research, my two advisers, Mohit and Fauzi, support me with their excellent technical advice, and many staff members in CHiPES help me with my life in Singapore and NTU. By their help, I have no problem and no worry about my new life in this country. I have no doubt I will have productive days with these "friends!"