Resort or Dorm?

January 11, 2019

QUICK VIEW

• Make sure to read all documents provided by the host school, you will know what to expect when you arrive….maybe I would have known that I didn’t have wifi lol
• Pack shower essentials that will last you until you can buy whatever you need when you arrive

After my taxi arrived at my school, Nanyang Technological University, on the West of Singapore…I was immediately impressed at the views I was seeing from a place of study. I went to go register for my housing, and then proceeded to find my building and room. My building is Crescent Hall…this building looks like a resort, I swear. Again, there is so much greenery everywhere. My building has a pond and wetland in the center, how beautiful…I almost forgot that I came here for school and not vacation.  

After walking around in circles getting lost, I found my room and immediately fell onto my bed. In my room, I don’t have air conditioning… That will be something I will get used to as time goes by. I was also surprised to find out that you need to purchase your own form of wifi as the wifi provided by the school is not accessible from student living buildings.

Eventually I met someone who also needed to buy a router for their room and they told me that there was an electronics shop in the school that sold the internet routers. This cost me 30 SGD and was a one time payment. I installed it very easily in my room and now I have wifi. Also, remember to bring a travel adapter because the outlets in Singapore are not the same as those in the United States. Singapore uses the UK outlet. These adapters can be purchased anywhere, I got mine on amazon and it was not expensive.

I have a single room and it is quite spacious. I have a twin bed, a desk, a closet, and two sets of shelves on both sides of my room. I have a huge window in front of my desk and when you open the curtains you can see the other part of the building and also the wetland down below. Something common here in Singapore is that a lot of people dry their clothes on these extended bars of metal attached to the bottom of the window on the outside. When I was in the taxi that was something that I had noticed all over the place. There were colorful clothes hanging out of windows in tall residential buildings.

Something new to me was the fact that the building is open. In other words, the halls of the building are open to the outside weather because inside of a closed window, it is just an opening. Same thing in the bathroom, the window in front of the mirrors is open and fresh air comes in. This is something that I am not used to, but it genuinely feels nice. I don’t feel like I’m closed in by walls…I can see outside and I can feel the nice wind while being shielded from the sun.

I met the people on my floor and they are very nice. Each floor of this building, and every dorm building at NTU, is separated into male and female.

I like my room and I really like this building…looking outside makes me feel like I am on vacation and that will motivate me to finish studying haha….maybe??