Travel Report
Spring 2015 – Taipei, Taiwan
National Taiwan University College of Management
Student number: 409180
1. Prepare for the exchange
In the beginning of March 2014, I received a confirmation email from International
Student office that I was selected to the MSc exchange program to National Taiwan
University (NTU) in spring 2015. This email includes four documents – Letter for
selected students 2014, Exchange place confirmation 2014, Scholarship commitment
2014 BIZ, and Exchange student waiver 2014. The confirmation form has to be filled
in and submitted in one week to the mail box of International Student Service or sent
to [email protected] as a scanned document from when you received it, even you
do not accept it. In addition, students who accept the place have to also submit the
waiver and the scholarship commitment.
In the beginning of September 2014, I received a reminder email of nomination
selected to exchange to National Taiwan University for spring 2015 from the
coordinator of outgoing exchange students of International student office. This email
contains five documents attached as follows:
1) NTU CoM Fact Sheet 2014-2015
2) Exchange Program Application Guidelines 2014-2015
3) Exchange Program Application Form 2014-2015
4) NTU Health Form (attachment A)
5) Chinese Language Course Survey (Attachment B)
Notice to read these documents carefully and follow the given deadlines.
The following documents are required for application:
•
1 X Completed Application Form (Signed by Home School’s Coordinator)
•
2 X Passport-sized Color Photos
•
1 X Official Transcript of Grades
•
1 X Curriculum Vitae (in English)
•
1 X Copy of Non-Taiwanese Passport Page Showing Name and Date of Birth
•
1 X NTU International Student Health Exam Form or not enclosed with
application, but to be submitted before Orientation
•
1 X Chinese Language Course Survey (if applicable)
•
1 X Copy of Accident/Health Insurance Documents
All the required documents were just sent to NTU contact person as scanned
documents, not required to post to International Affairs at College of Management,
NTU, by mail, so the submitting form was changed with previous form.
Tips:
1. Aalto students can get health examination for free at Finnish Student Health
Service (http://www.yhts.fi). The deadline for sending these required documents to
NTU was on 31 of October 2014. Because I would leave Finland on December, I had
less than 2 months to complete. I made an appointment to get examination on October,
but the available time of the doctor was limited, and it takes time to get the results of
Urine and chest X-Ray examinations, so for me the time was very urgent. Thus, I
advise to make an appointment as early as possible so that you have enough time to
handle urgencies.
2. Because I had bought an international insurance for Finnish residence permission
covering all the destinations except the United States, I did not buy a new one.
Official Letter of Acceptance
On December 10th of 2014, I received a welcome email from International Affairs at
College of Management, NTU, which contains a Chinese and an English scanned
official letters of acceptance (with my NTU student number), and some pre-arrival
information and after-arrival guidelines.
Exit and Entry Permit Application Information for People’s Republic of China
(PRC) citizens (Not needed for non-Chinese citizens)
PRC (Chinese) passport holders must apply for an Exit and Entry Permit entering
Taiwan. NTU is required to submit and pay the application fee on my behalf first in
Taiwan before I can proceed further to submit a copy of all documents required to the
Taipei Representative Office in Finland. When you got a code from NTU for further
application, you could go to Taipei Representative Office in Finland for applying with
all the required documents. Because I would leave Finland on December 26th of 2014
and received all the required Exit and Entry Permit application documents on
December 10th of 2014, but the application procedure takes about 1 week, the time is
urgent as well. I received my electronic Exit and Entry Permit document on
December 17th of 2014. Thus, even thought you could leave Finland if you submit all
the required documents to the Taipei Representative Office in Finland, it is better to
ensure that everything is done before you leave Finland.
Tips: Only with Exit and Entry Permit certificate, you cannot take a flight from
mainland of China to Taiwan directly, so you have to take a flight transferring at a
third country then to Taiwan. Remember you also need to buy a return flight at a
specific date when you must leave Taiwan required on the Exit and Entry Permit
certificate. Thus, I bought a flight to Taipei transferring in Hong Kong. If you want to
take a flight to Taipei directly, you have to apply other certificate – Pass Mainland
Residence to Taiwan Certificate – in mainland of China. The application procedure
takes about 10 days. Therefore, you need to decide which way is better for you to go
to Taiwan.
Accommodation
You can choose to live at NTU Student Resident by applying accommodation in the
Exchange Program Application Form. Of course, you can also choose to live offcampus in private, independently arranged accommodations. However, you are
responsible for finding your own off-campus housing. As I know, the price of housing
rent is expensive compared to in-campus accommodation. You have two options
provided by NTU Student Residences as follows:
Option
Room Type
A
Single Room
Fee
NT$7,400 per
month
Description
Private bathroom
Private bathroom
shared among two
B
Double Room
NT$4,900 per
residents
month
(Exchange students
of College of
Management)
I received an email about Prince House-NTU Chang Hsing Dorms down payment
notification on January 5th of 2015. To confirm the room reservation, I must pay the
down payment (one-month rent according to my room type) before January 31st to a
given account. The down payment will be transferred as my first month’s rent when I
check in. After check-in, the following rent, which generated upon your
accommodation, would only be accepted by money transfer by local currency (NTD).
If there is any no-show or cancellation of reservations afterwards, the down payment
will not be refunded. Therefore, please consider carefully before confirming the room
reservation.
Upon arrival, a refundable security deposit of two month’s rent is required. You
should go to the front desk to pay your deposit by local currency (NTD). I suggest
that you pay the full amount at once in avoidance of the remittance fees that comes
with every monthly payment. The deposit will be refunded to you under the
conditions as stipulated in the Accommodation Agreement at the end of the exchange
period, normally one week in advance. Remember to bring one copy of passport and
one copy of admission letter from NTU and one passport-size photo when check-in.
There are bedding-selling provided by dormitory office. If there is a need, you can
approach the front desk for purchasing when you arrive.
Tips: I chose single room as my first preference, but I was assigned to a double room
at the beginning maybe due to my late submission of my exchange program
application form. I contacted the Housing Service to express whether I can change to
a single room. After several days, the Housing informed me that someone who had a
single room wanted to change to a double room, so fortunately, I could had a single
room for the whole exchange room.
Quick Guide on Accessing Course Information
On January 16th of 2015, I got my student account (student ID and password). In such
way I could select courses from course listing.
Tips: You can choose maximum 7 courses. I suggest to choose as most courses you’d
like to take as possible, afterwards you can quit some that you do not want to take any
more. Please remember that you’d better quit courses before the deadline of drop
course date. Otherwise, you can just withdraw one course afterward.
Normally, you might just succeed to enroll one or two courses at the beginning. Do
not worry. You can go to the class and ask for course authorization codes from the
lecturers/professors. However, we might not be accepted by some courses due to the
program limitation, so it is important to plan out how many courses and what courses
I go to take and to have alternative coursed ready as back-ups in case of time conflict
or course cancellation/rejection.
Group Airport Pick-up
Unfortunately, I am not sure whether NTU provided group-airport pick-up, because I
did not receive any information about this service. I went to NTU from the airport
alone. I took a bus outside the airport to Taipei Main Station, and then took MRT to
NTU (getting off at Gongguan Station). Unfortunately, you still need to walk 15-20
minutes to NTU student residence. Alternatively, you can take a taxi to NTU student
residence directly. It may cost around 40 euros.
Orientation Day
Orientation day started on February 12th of 2015. On February 14th, an optional oneday Taipei city trip was arranged. I strongly recommend that you should go to the
orientation and participate the free one-day trip. I think that the two days might be the
best days for you to know other exchange students. Because the term began on
February 24th, you can make some friends and go to travel together within the
following 11 days.
2. Exchange Studies
Because Taiwan also celebrates Chinese Lunar New Year, and Chinese Lunar New
Year varies from year to year, the winter holiday between the orientation day and the
starting date of this term. As I mentioned above, the orientation day was on February
12th. The starting and ending dates of this term were on February 24th and June 28th of
2015. Some courses have mid-term examinations held on the middle of April. The
first week of April in this term was spring holiday. The final examinations were held
on the last two weeks of the term.
Although Business School of Aalto only has a college-level partnership with College
of Management of NTU, we are still allowed to take courses from the other colleges
of NTU. The required course-load abroad is 24 ECTS for graduate students, which are
equivalent to 12 credits in NTU. The courses selected need to satisfy followings:
•
From economics, business administration or related field OR
•
From other fields of science if supporting business studies
•
Courses you have not yet completed for your degree
•
Maximum 8 ECTS local language/culture studies > minimum 16 ECTS has to
be other than language/culture studies
•
ISM can contain some courses from the field of your study program if
necessary > justified reason required > content has to differ from the coursed
you complete in your study program at Aalto
You can go to myNTU and enter Online Course Information to browse courses
conducted in English. There are around 70 courses (including graduate and
undergraduate level courses) conducted in English in college of management and 13
courses in English provided by GMBA program, which we are assigned to. Even
though there are 70 business courses provided, many courses reject students from
different programs or who did not take the first level of the course. However, you can
select courses at both undergraduate and graduate level. Because we can choose
maximum 8 ECTS language/culture courses, we can choose 4-credit language/culture
courses in NTU, namely one 3-credit or two 2-credit language/culture courses. I took
four courses all from college of management, whereas from different programs. I will
shortly introduce the four courses I took below.
My courses taken at NTU
IM 2010 Operations Research/ Undergraduate level/ 3 credits (6 ECTS)/
Instructor Ling-Chieh Kung
This course studies how to facilitate decision making for either a single decision
maker or multiple decision makers. Most examples are adopted from the business
world while some are from various engineering fields. Basic knowledge on Calculus,
Linear Algebra, Discrete Mathematics, and Probability is assumed for students taking
this course. This is a required course for the sophomores in the Department of
Information Management in NTU. In most cases, all the students who want to enroll
in or audit this course are welcome. This course is taught in English.
This course is very useful in decision-making and the instructor Ling-Chieh Kung is
quite responsible. He uploads a course video to the YouTube and a pre-lecture
problem 5 days before the following lecture every week so that we can learn it and
finish the pre-lecture problem. On the class, he just answers the problems we have
and for the rest of time we solve several problems and exhibit our solutions
voluntarily, and then he explains the problems to us. Overall, this course is useful but
the workload is heavy.
Grading breakdown:
• Quiz: 0%.
• Pre-lecture problems: 5%. Lecture problems: 15%. Class participation: 5%.
• Four homework: 10%. Two case studies: 15%.
• Project: 25%. Final exam: 25%.
• (Bonus!) PDAO contest or a bonus problem: 5%.
MBA 5057 Integrated Logistics Management/ Graduate level/ 3 credits (6
ECTS)/ Instructor Jiuh-Biing Sheu
The major of this course is to familiarize students with conceptual framework and
distinctive features of integrated logistics systems. In addition to integrated logistics
in typical supply chains, several extended types of integrated logistics systems, e.g.,
integrated logistics in reverse supply chains, green supply chains, global supply
chains, and emergency logistics, are introduced.
Even though this course is graduate level, the course is relative less challenging and
has less workload. However, this course trains ability of teamwork, as all students are
grouped into 4 teams to complete one case study, one literature review, and one term
project. The professor invited two guest lecturers to give us speeches. This course is
also taught in English. Overall, this course is useful, but relaxing.
Grading policy:
• Case studies: 20%
• Literature review: 20%
• Midterm exam: 20%
• Term project: 20%
• Class discussion & participation: 20%
MBA 5032 Psychology Work/ Graduate level/ 3 credits (6 ECTS)/ Instructor Lu
Luo
This course hope that students will have a fair grasp of basic theories and research in
psychology, especially those closely related to work and management issues. With
such knowledge, students will be able to apply psychology in the future occupations.
This course is taught in Chinese.
This course is my favorite course, because firstly I am interested in the field of
psychology, secondly this course is very useful in interpersonal influence and
communicate, personality assessment and employee selection, intimate relationships
and friendships, career decision and development, and work stress, etc. In addition,
the professor is very excellent in the field of psychology and her lecture is pretty
appealing.
Grading policy:
• Class participation: 30%
• Final project: 70%
IB 5024 Options and Futures/ Undergraduate level/ 3 credits (6 ECTS)/
Instructor Jr-Yan Wang
The major goal of this course is to provide students comprehensive understanding of
many financial derivatives. A derivative instrument is a contract between two parties
whose payoff depends on the values of the underlying variables on a specified date in
the future. The prices of any commodity assets or financial assets can be the
underlying variables, and these assets is called underlying assets.
Four categories of derivatives will be covered in this course, including forwards,
futures, swaps, and options. Students will learn how and where to trade these
derivatives. In addition, the methods to calculate the theoretical values of these
derivatives are also introduced. Moreover, the trading and hedging strategies
associated with these financial derivatives will be discussed.
It is strongly recommended that students who are interested in this course should
already learn some basic Finance courses before, such as Investments, Financial
Management, or Corporate Finance. The basic knowledge in Finance, e.g., the time
value of money, the simple vs. compound interest, the term structure of interest rates,
the present vs. future values, the fundamental classes of financial assets, etc. are
required to know. This course is designed for undergraduate students. For graduate
students, if you never learned similar courses before, welcome to take this course.
This course also has a relatively heavy workload. Even though 70% problems of two
exams are collected from questions at the end of each chapter in required textbook
with minor modification, each chapter has more than 30 questions. In addition, the
speed of his lecture is so fast that it takes a lot of time to absorb all the knowledge.
Grading policy:
• Midterm exam: 50%
• Final exam: 50%
3. Free Time and Other Information
Cost of living
Compared to Finnish goods price, living cost is cheaper in Taipei. For my case, my
expenses are as follows:
•
The accommodation rent is NT$7,400 (211 euros) per month for single room
•
Total two textbooks costs around NT$1,600 (46 euros) and printing cost is
about 6 euros, because printing is not free in NTU, NT$1.5 for both side
printing.
•
Total electric charge is about NT$1,300 (37 euros)
•
The total Internet fee is NT$400 (11 euros) in the dorm. And I paid total
NT$900 (26 euros), namely NT$300 per time cellphone charge including call
charges and 3G charges.
•
I did not buy a bike, because near the dorm there is a Ubike spot, where you
can borrow the Ubike with your student card, and the first thirty minutes cost
NT$5. Of course, you can buy a second-hand bike. The cheapest price that
you can buy is NT$400 (12 euros), when you leave Taiwan, you can sell them
easily.
•
There are washing machine and drying machine in the dormitory. It costs
NT$10 or 30 to use washing machine for 30 minutes and NT$10 to use drying
machine.
•
The food is much cheaper than in Finland. It is very cheap if you eat buffet in
campus. The price varies according to the weight of food that you take. Even
if you eat off-campus, the price is also quite affordable: an average meal can
vary from 1 euro to 6 euros. You can eat very well when spending 6 – 15
euros.
Getting to know other students and free time
Almost all the exchange students at College of Management live in Chang-hsing
dorm, which has two buildings, one for female and one for male. Male dormitory has
a big common room well equipped with leisure facilities, such as table tennis, pool
table, and gym equipment, so you can easily find other exchange students and local
students to have fun or discuss at recreation section. Everyone who is a resident in
Chang-Hsing dorm can use his/her key to enter the common room.
General information for the local area, weather, cultural differences
Taipei City is located in the Taipei Basin in northern Taiwan. It is bordered by the
Xindian River on the south and the Tamsui River on the west. The northern districts
of Shilin and Beitou extend north of the Keelung River and are bordered by
Yangmingshan National Park.
Taipei has a monsoon-influenced humid subtropical climate. Summer is long, hot,
very humid, accompanied by occasional heavy rainstorms and typhoons, while winter
is short, generally warm, and generally very foggy. The average temperatures from
February to June are 20, 22, 26, 30, and 32 degrees, respectively. It becomes very hot
from May and your body will sweat a lot when you are outside. I was really not
accustomed to this kind of climate. It is totally opposite to the climate in Finland.
As a Chinese citizen, I did not experience many cultural differences. However, most
of European and Northern American encountered cultural differences to some extent.
I think that the most significant difference is dietary habit. However, everyone may
have different cultural shocks, so you have to experience them yourselves that you
know what are the cultural differences to you.
Traveling in Taiwan
Since there are no too many differences of natural and cultural sceneries in Taiwan
from in mainland of China, for me traveling in Taiwan may be a little different from
other exchange students. I prefer to hang out in the old lanes to find some interesting
things than to travel to those so-called scenic spots and historic sites. Of course, these
famous sight spots are worthy to go for western people.
If you want to travel out of Taiwan, you can go to Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore,
Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, and Hong Kong, etc. It is relatively cheap and
convenient. Unfortunately, for Chinese citizens, we are just allowed to enter Taiwan
once with the Exit and Entry permit, so you can experience Taiwan sufficiently.
Good things to know/useful information
NTU has many student clubs, like coffee club, taekwondo club, baking club, and so
forth. People in almost all of the clubs speak Chinese, so it is not good for nonChinese speakers.
4. Final Comments
I would recommend NTU to those students who are interested in Chinese language
and culture for non-Chinese students. Of course, they also can learn Chinese language
and culture in mainland of China, but I would say that Taiwan might offer you a
better experience. Taiwanese people are more polite, honest, and helpful, especially in
service industry and towards foreigners. In the case of Chinese students, you might
feel discriminated more or less, but you can learn many things and have a whole
impression to Taiwan. Like a Belgian girl saying to me, Taiwanese people are very
polite and nice to others, but it is difficult to get close and make friends with them. I
never saw people from the Middle East eat or walk with Taiwanese. I think that
Taiwan is a good place to travel, but not very suit for living if you are not accustomed
to the humid and hot climate and Taiwanese dietary habit.
If I were going to the NTU for another exchange, I would travel a lot more than this
time. Besides Chinese Lunar New Year holiday and spring holiday, I stayed in Taipei
all the time and spent most of leisure time in the library due to my heavy workload.
Not like many other exchange students spent almost all the leisure time on the road,
so if I had another opportunity, I would like to choose less challenging and easier
course.
When thinking about what I learnt during my exchange, besides the knowledge I
learnt from classes, I look at Taiwan and myself more comprehensively. I always
heard that how good Taiwan is before, but during half and four month I stayed in
Taiwan, I saw good things that are worthy us to learn and also experienced bad things.
And once I heard that Taiwanese food is so excellent. However, when I came to
Taiwan, I found that it’s far more difference from what I though. In these ways, I
know not to judge or comment a thing that you never experience and not to have an
ingrained superiority complex just because of others different from you. It’s like a
saying in the “The Great Gatsby” – “whenever you feel like criticizing anyone, just
remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had.”
For myself, during the exchange, I know what my favorite major is – owing to the
professor of workplace psychology, what I want to do in the future, what I can do for
the society, and how to communicate with others. I’d like to say that I lived in Finland
for half and four years, but I have not made a Finnish friend because I am used to stay
in my comfort zone. While I stay in Taiwan just for half and four months, I made 3
very good friends from French, Belgium, and Switzerland, and other friends who
influenced me. This exchange makes me more brave and outgoing.