Why Southeast Asia?

If you are a Southeast Asian Studies major then you have probably already heard about the Semester-in-SEA program. Customised for SEASP students, the Semester-in-SEA program offers you a chance to experience a semester of student life in either Indonesia, Thailand or Vietnam. Of course the first question is - why choose Southeast Asia when you might as well just stay in NUS? Why not go to Europe, or the United States of America, or Australia?

The number one reason being: There is no better place to study Southeast Asia than in Southeast Asia itself. Yes, there are many things we can learn from books but there is so much more we can learn by experiencing firsthand the things we read about in class. It is one thing to read a passage on the numerous warungs that line the streets in Indonesia - it is another thing entirely to sit on a mat laid down by the side of a warung and sip a cup of hot sekoteng under the starry night sky. 

Another excellent reason is the way this program is customised. In university you are bound by the modules offered by your faculty. You cannot study something that isn't offered by the department - only if someone wishes to teach it can you learn it. During your semester away, you get to choose two topics based on your own interests and conduct your own research. Learning is literally at your own fingertips. These independent study modules provide an excellent opportunity for you to customise your own learning experience.

If these two reasons aren't good enough, there's a third: you get to participate in an internship during your semester of exchange and it counts towards your university modular credits back home! So far the partner universities have been very helpful in finding a company for us to intern with that fit our interests (even when the requests are slightly unusual like my request to work with a gamelan group :p ).

If you want to apply for the Semester-in-SEA program, check out the Southeast Asian Studies Program website for more information here.