Exchange: National Taiwan University, Taipei.

Exchange semester at National Taiwan University, Taipei.

September 2015 – January 2016.

Visa

If you are a Dutch citizen, like me, there are two options regarding visa for Taiwan:

1. One is to get a visa upon your arrival: this visa will be valid 90 days, after which you will have to leave the country.
2. You can also apply for a visa at the Taiwan Representative Office in The Hague, after which you will get a visa which is also valid for 90 days, but which you can extend while staying in Taiwan.

In order to apply for a visa, you will need copies of your passport, passport pictures, a certificate of enrollment at your University, a copy – and the original (just for show) of the acceptance letter of NTU, and flight tickets – in and out of the country. Furthermore, keep in mind that your passport needs to be valid another 15 months upon your arrival date.

Personally – my visa application was a bit of a headache, since I was planning on travelling in China before going to Taiwan, and I needed the NTU acceptance letter in order to apply for a visa, which hadn´t been sent out yet…

Health exam

NTU requires students to undertake a health examination, which you can do either in your home country, or at the NTU hospital. This year the school decided to add another requirement quite last minute, so the people who already undertook the exam at home still had to go to the hospital for additional checks. Since the health exam has to be done within three months before arriving in Taiwan, and I was travelling in that period of time, I did the health exam in Taiwan. It’s quite a regular examination: they check your blood, urine, eye sight, height, weight, heart and lung scan, ask you about your psychological situation, and check if your bones are growing straight by just making you bend over. Personally, I didn’t experience the exam as very unpleasant, and they were even quite thorough.

Reception and communication with Partner University

The 8th and 9th of September, NTU arranged for airport pickup. There were a few volunteer students who would wait for you and make sure you got on the organized shuttle bus which stopped at the dorms. If you want to arrive earlier or later, you will have to arrange for transportation yourself (about two hours by buses and MRT), but NTU sent out detailed instructions for that via email as well. The first few days NTU organized several tours around campus, as well as orientation meetings informing you about how NTU worked. You also get a map you will need a lot!

Source

Communications with the partner university was in one word horrible. Miscommunications started at home already, and even the student exchange organizer couldn’t get a clear answer from NTU. Anyone from our university didn’t have a clue, and if you would email them with questions you would just get the answer "to look on their website"… I personally had a problem wiring the first money payment to their bank account, and I was told that "it was just my problem" and if I didn’t succeed I would lose my reserved room. During the semester I ran into a few problems as well and I was sent from office to office and I was expected to solve mistakes in the system of NTU all within a day. Furthermore, every office gave me different information and forms to submit and hand in, eventually resulting in such a big miscommunication. My grade transcript wasn’t even sent to my home university at first.

Luckily, I opted for a student volunteer. She was really nice and always willing to answer my questions. Without her, I wouldn’t even have managed to enroll haha. However, from other students I heard their student volunteer was a no-show, since they get credits for signing up, without intending to actually contribute…

My advice: be nice to your student volunteer, and have a lot of contact with your fellow home university students going.

Housing

NTU has a variety of dorms where you can live. The most expensive ones have a kitchen (which you share with 3 other residents), and the cheapest dorms share a room with multiple students. I got into a single dorm room without a kitchen and it was just fine. This is, because most people in Taiwan go out to eat in the evenings, since the food in restaurants is relatively cheap and really delicious! I applied for Shui Yuan housing, and you will notice most foreign students try to get into this dorm. There is a shared kitchen on the first floor (note this is the ground floor – but they count differently here), with a rice cooker, microwave, water boiler, etc. Shui Yuan dorms are off campus, but within a five minute walk. Conveniently, there is a 711 around the corner, which will be your new best friend and provider. Furthermore, dorm A – the women’s dorm – has a small gym you can use, as well as a big study room with some ping-pong tables.

When you arrive at the dorms the first day, before you can go anywhere you have to give them – again – copies of your passport, admission letters, etc. Just bring a lot, since it seems like they eat them here… You also have to make a deposit of 2 months’ worth of rent. Since I am a poor student my card has a limited amount of cash I can withdraw each day, which is not a big problem since then they give you three days to come up with the money – however, you do not get a key for entering the building until you pay your deposit, you will have to ring the bell every time.

The room itself only contains the most basic necessities: a bathroom, fridge, cabinet, desk and a bed. You will have to buy most things yourself, like a mattress, blanket, pillow, etc. 711 sells those, and otherwise there is also an Ikea in town.

Campus

The NTU campus is amazing! There is a big central road, surrounded by palmtrees leading up to the famous library. This is a picture perfect location, and thus you will see many photoshoots with brides, couples or other things. The campus is in Gongguan area, with a lot of food places everywhere. The campus contains a lot of food areas, as well as a post office, bank, ATMs, a sports center, tennis-, volleyball-, and basketball courts, lounging areas, and several libraries… even a McDonald’s.

Since most of my classes were at the Social Science building, which is approximately half an hour walking from the Shui Yuan dorms, I bought a bike since I would basically be walking 2 to 4 hours each day – which is fun and nice during the summer, but once the homework got more, was a bit of a waste of my time. NTU has a bike-auction every Thursday morning, from 8 a. m. onwards: first-come-first-serve. I showed up the first Thursday at 3am, and there was literally someone sleeping in a tent in order to be on time. When I went a few weeks later at 5 a. m., I was about the tenth person there, so got a pretty okay bike. If you only want to use a bike once in a while, there are UBikes at a lot of central locations (you can cycle from Gongguan MRT to the Social Sciences building, since both places have an UBike station). You can rent an UBike with your MRT card, which is also your student card – how convenient…

Course selection

Personally, I found it a bit challenging to figure out the NTU selection system. You have to go through several rounds to applications, and each time you have to rank your selected courses in order of preferences. Luckily, I had a student volunteer assigned that was more than willing to help me – she and I skyped and thus she was able to show me where to find the course list and where to apply. She also warned me it was quite an unusual selection system, and thus it wasn’t certain if you would get all the courses you enrolled for. I decided to enroll for 15 courses (I would need only 5 to 7 to acquire all my credits), and I only got enrolled for 2. However, at NTU the first two weeks of classes are only for orientation. You can attend any class you want, and the professors have several slips to give to interested students so they can get in anyway. If you really liked the class, all you had to do was walk up to the professor – or Teaching Assistant – at the end of class and ask him for a green slip. Then you would have to fill in the code of the slip online, and you would be enrolled for the course. Some courses give their slips first to students enrolled in a certain department before giving them to other students, and other courses wanted students to write a little motivational essay about why they wanted to take a certain course…

I enrolled for mostly Master’s degree courses, since these were more interesting (or at least in English), therefore, I guess my course load was a bit higher than that of the regular student. I had to give several presentations and do group projects, however, only three courses required an individual essay.

Regarding Chinese classes, everyone has to take a Chinese test at the beginning of the semester, existing out of a written part, reading/understanding, and a two-minute conversation with a Chinese teacher. According to these results, you get placed in a Chinese class – switching up is really difficult, since the teachers here believe in the correct ranking of the system.

Culture shock

Not really.

Taipei is a very modern city, yet still has some old fashioned treats. I personally thought Taipei to be a small ‘big’ city. A lot of people speak English, and everyone seems to be very patient with you. There are numerous bars, and food literally everywhere. No one seems to cook, and everyone seems to go out at night for dinner.

Furthermore, the parties are amazing! You pay around 500 TWD for entrance, and most clubs have an open bar. The party doesn´t really start before 12 though.

Conclusion

Overall, my experience in Taiwan has been absolutely amazing!

My summer started with a three-month travel through China before going to Taiwan, and before going back home I went away to Japan, so I was away for roughly 8 months. The people are amazing, the food is to fall in love with, and there isn’t a dull moment. When I look outside of my dorm window, I see the city lights surrounding Taipei 101, and I realize I have fallen hopelessly in love with this city.

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