I have gained skills and learnt things that studying in the UK and placement year cannot teach you

As a final year Business and Management student, I was very wary of the new pressures a semester abroad can bring on top of a heavy workload. However, from an educational stance, I feel that my time at UoRM was extremely beneficial. Although it was different, I found it to be a more personal style of teaching to what I was used to because of the smaller classes and extra support you receive as a mobility student. The lecturers were keen to help me outside of coursework also. For example, I developed an interest in Big Data during my placement year and one of the lecturers was speaking at a conference on this topic in Kuala Lumpur, during my time there, so I was invited to the event and they offered me their own personal free pass for the day.

Everyone was extremely welcoming and keen to get to know me and more about the UK. Food is a huge part of the culture in Malaysia so they would often take us out to try new places to eat (very cheap to do so too). I don’t think I ate alone once.

The primary motive for most people who were doing a semester or year in Malaysia, was to be able to travel and see more of Asia. We found this very easy to do as flights can be very cheap from the campus’ closest airport, Senai (about 20mins away) and there are plenty of cheap hostels for accommodation. During my time there I visited Singapore, Vietnam, Thailand, Philippines and islands across Malaysia. The busy weekends meant we had to work slightly harder Monday- Friday and keep our time management in check, but it was 100% worth it. On reflection, my semester in Malaysia was one of the best things I’ve ever done and definitely taught me things that I couldn’t have learnt in my placement year or by studying in the UK.

Malaysia