National Chengchi University,

Exchange report

Autumn 2014 K90367

Congratulations! If you are reading this it means you have either been selected to go to National Chengchi University, also known as NCCU, or you are at least considering it as an option. I hope you make the same great decision that I did and get to experience the beauty of ! Preparing for the exchange semester

Application and health check

If you are attending the autumn semester starting in the beginning of September, you will be contacted by the lovely Cherry Huang of the OIC around mid-April and asked to do an online application. This is a mere formality, and there should be no problems in getting accepted. The official application process is a pretty straightforward one, where you just fill in a simple online form.

NCCU wants you to do a health check for the application; this can be done in Finland or once you’ve arrived. I had problems getting the health check done on time in Finland as the queues at YTHS were as bad as always, but I can very much recommend doing it after arriving to Taipei. The process is very simple and much less hassle than in Finland (they know exactly what to do, whereas the Chinese forms can cause confusion at YTHS). The university gives you directions and an approximate time, and you are in and out of the facility in less than 20 mins (blood tests, lung x-rays, all that jazz at a cost of around 10€).

Recommended vaccinations include Hepatitis A+B, and some also opt for the Japanese Encephalitis-vaccine, which as a disease is very rare yet kills you if you manage to be very unlucky and catch it. Vaccines are cheaper to get in Taiwan (specially for the Japanese Encephalitis), thus I would recommend getting them there.

Visa and flights

As a Finnish or EU citizen, you can enter Taiwan without a visa, as tourists are given 90 days on arrival and a simple visit outside Taiwan is enough to renew this. However this does require that you have an outgoing ticket already that takes you out of the country in the 90 day-period. You can also get a single entry visa (about 70€) or a multiple-entry visa from the consulate quite easily (few days), but at least I put that 70€ towards my flight to Singapore instead of getting a visa.

For the flights, I booked mine just about 3 weeks before departure. I opted to arrive to Taipei just a few days before the orientation day, as I had housing sorted out already. Flights at that time were around 400€ one way and 750€ return (for return around Dec/Jan), so I chose to get just a one-way ticket as I didn’t have a good idea about when my courses would be finished, if I wanted to travel afterwards and where I would even fly to from Taipei. The hassle of trying to change bookings is not for me. The autumn semester at NCCU officially ends at the end of January, but depending on the courses you take, you can be finished as early as mid-December. Most of the exchange student-heavy courses end just before Christmas, as everyone is eager to get home for the holidays (or to get traveling..).

Buddies

NCCU has a buddy system, where each exchange student is assigned two “buddies” that welcome you to the NCCU and Taipei. They will contact you through Facebook and possibly even come to the airport when you arrive. I would strongly suggest to get to know your buddies, as they can help you with many things and they are an easy way of getting to know the local culture, as otherwise you will mostly hang out with other exchange students.

After Arrival Courses

The courses offered at NCCU vary a little from year to year. As a little surprise, the courses mentioned in earlier exchange reports year after year were not available to us this time. The university offers some exchange student-only courses (undergraduate/graduate) and it’s possible to choose from the regular course selection as well as from the iMBA courses.

For the regular courses, you “apply” to them in an online system just like the local students, and you get results sometime in September. Apparently these are relatively hard to get into because of the number of students so enroll to anything that suits your schedule and interest (if you have to take four courses and enroll to only four, you most likely will not get into any of them). The university has an add-and-drop period, when it is possible to visit the classes and try to get in. The exchange-only courses have a separate online enrollment system, and these are easier to get into.

The enrollment for the iMBA courses is done directly to Cherry beforehand, and for those it is very likely that you get the courses you wanted, as the iMBA student body is much smaller. The Chinese Language Center also offers Chinese courses to exchange students.

Requirements for the courses varied quite a bit, with iMBA focusing on group work. iMBA also has a strict attendance policy, whereby you can still miss some lessons but after the limit they are very inflexible.

Personally I would recommend taking as many iMBA courses as possible, as they seemed to be of better value in terms of learning and the level of teaching. Even if they have long seminar days, the days don’t actually feel that long due to discussions, videos and breaks.

Chinese Business in Global Perspectives, iMBA (6ETCS) I didn’t finish this course due to time constraints, but I sat through enough lectures so I decided I’d include it. A quite broad course about Chinese business conducted by a very sweet professor. Lessons included topics on e.g. the car industry, history of Chinese business and it’s development, e-commerce, environmental factors etc. Interesting as such and the professor was good, but the execution of certain things could have been better (like students having 1,5h presentations about materials everyone was supposed to have read anyway). Lessons every week for 3 hours, grade based on two presentations and a term paper.

Venture Capital & Entrepreneurship, iMBA (6ETCS) Quite the funny course. The professor Chester Ho is himself an angel investor focused on biotech, and the lectures gave a rough idea about how venture capital works and how entrepreneurship should be done. The lectures had visitors (e.g. young entrepreneurs his VC firm has invested in such as the founders of the app Jink and his friend who had been working at Amazon) and lots of discussion, TEDtalks videos and personal stories. We also created business ideas in groups and pitched them to the class. Grade based on participation, the final pitches in the VC competition and so forth. “Do not worry about the grades, I just hope you learn something on the way”. The course was a seminar course, meaning 6 meetings on selected weekend days (either Sat or Sun) from 9am to 6pm, with long breaks. Would recommend as the course was very different to Aalto courses and the professor was a legend.

Confucianism and Leadership, iMBA (6ETCS) Probably the best course I took. The course was about leadership but with a Confucian twist: we discussed the analects of Confucius, their relation to leadership and what it means to be a good leader. The professor was extremely passionate about his teaching, and although it was sometimes a bit much, it was still a great experience. This was also a seminar-style course, with three 9-hour meetings on weekends and a two days-overnight seminar camp at a local hotel. Grade was based on individual self-reflections and weekly group presentations/ reports, 5 each. Required some effort, but it was worth it. If anything, the course really made one think about leadership, ethics, moral and taught giving and receiving feedback.

Mandarin Chinese, CLC (6 ETCS) Chinese for beginners: you get to choose between “reading, writing, speaking and listening” and just conversational courses. I chose the former, as I wanted to learn the characters (hanzi). Both options have lessons twice a week for 3 hours at a time, for 9 weeks. The course comes with a cost (around €250), but the Chinese Language Center gives you this money back as a scholarship if you don’t miss more than two classes and score at least 80% as your final grade. Around half of the students succeed in this. The course is somewhat demanding with quizzes almost every class and as one can imagine, learning the characters (recognition and drawing), (the western way of writing the words; obviously no Chinese person has any idea what it means) and the pronunciation of the words isn’t exactly child’s play. The course is well worth it regardless, as you learn the basics and get a deeper understanding of the culture at the same time. Grade consists of attendance, quizzes, homework and the final exam, which has a written part and an oral part.

How to Exploit Innovativeness, exchange course (4ETCS) This course was my “had-to-take” choice, as I needed two 4-credit courses to fill the remaining 6 credits. Funny enough, the course was conducted by an Aalto professor (from the engineering side) and as she was just visiting Taipei, it was arranged as an intensive course during a two-week period. The course was mainly good for undergrad level and incredibly easy (there was nothing university-like in the course, unfortunately). The main point was to do one 10-minute presentation in a group of 6 to 7 people, and the professor even gave us hours and hours to work on it during class time. Grade consisted of the presentation, an exam (short answers) and participation.

International Relations of Asia-Pacific, exchange course (4ETCS) Arranged by the School of Diplomacy, this course was like the name says, about the political relations between nations in the Asia-Pacific region. Lectures were a bit monotonous, but there was no mandatory attendance. Grade consisted of 3 article summaries, 3 article commentaries and a final paper. Interesting still because of the articles that we got to read, as they gave good insight to various issues in the AP-region.

Life in Taipei

Campus

The NCCU campus is located about a 30-minute commute away from the city of Taipei, accessible by MRT and a bus. This should be kept in mind when thinking about housing options: do you want easy access to the city or to the university. The campus itself is quite large, a little run-down on the outside but a nice place with green areas and many options for lunch etc.

Housing

You can easily apply for the on-campus accommodation as you are completing your application. NCCU has an iHouse for exchange students, which accommodates approximately 30% of the exchange students (single and double rooms), dormitories are generally not recommended. I decided to live off-campus which was a good choice for myself, as I had lectures quite infrequently and as a graduate student the undergrad-heavy demography of the iHouse would probably have been a bit much at times.

Finding private housing in Taipei can be a bit tricky with many places requiring longer contracts than a semester, but for example Facebook groups of previous semester’s exchange students have plenty of announcements for places. Some places don’t allow cooking or don’t have a kitchen, but eating out is cheap and common. Rents usually hover around 300€/month for a room. I lived with other exchange students (Germans, Dutch and a Finn) in the Xin’yi district close to Taipei 101 and this was a good choice with frequent buses to campus and good connections elsewhere as well.

Money For a 3-4 month study period, opening a local bank account is really not necessary. Cash is preferred over card at many places, but department stores, brand stores and some grocery stores do accept card payments as well. Bringing euros is smart, as getting money from an ATM is expensive (although best option most of the time), and the Taipei Taouyan airport money exchange, surprisingly enough, usually offers very good rates for the euro.

Phone Contract

Getting a local number is easy, Chunghwa Telecom and Taiwan mobile being the two biggest service providers. Unlimited data plans are expensive, but you can get 1G of prepaid 3G data for about 6€, and considering the university campus and many other places have Wi-Fi, this is enough for surfing on the go for a few weeks. The stores don’t usually speak much English, but setting up the plan is still fairly simple.

Transport

Taipei has an Easycard system, where you load money on an Easycard and you can use that on the MRT, buses and to pay for many things as well.

Health

Having seen a specialty doctor in Taipei, I thought I would share some experiences. NCCU provides a health center as well, but as I didn’t live on campus and my doctor needs were more esthetic than life threatening, I visited the Taipei Medical University Hospital just around the corner from my apartment to see a dermatologist. The procedure was simple, they called for an English-speaking staff member to help me and I got the appointment for the same day. The doctor spoke English and the consultation fees were very low even without a Taiwanese health care plan. I ended up paying around 11€ for the medication and the appointment altogether. So zero need to be afraid of going to the doctor if required.

Life in general

Taipei is known for its food culture, and you won’t go hungry there! Little restaurants can be found anywhere, food is cheap (full meals start from as low as 1,5€), and options for all cuisines are plenty. If you have a kitchen and can cook, good for you, as eating out can slowly take a toll on your health, but be prepared to spend more money than you would eating out. Compared to prices in Finland it’s still cheap.

If you are into sports, the campus area provides good options for that (swimming pools, gyms, ball game courts etc). In the city there are public gyms, and I found my favorite in the Taipei Xinyi Sports Center, which has e.g. a gym, a pool and climbing walls. Prices are very cheap as well, an hour at the gym costs around 1,2€. One interesting experience was registering for a 10K running event up and down the Maokong hill. I even ended up coming 3rd in my age group and got to participate in an awards ceremony. So go and experience the random things, they might be the experiences you’ll remember forever.

Taipei is a large-ish city, but with a good MRT network so reaching places is easy. There are quite a few sights in the city, so be prepared to spend some time exploring. Taipei 101 and its surroundings are the new center with a business vibe, with new malls, movie theatres (western movies can be seen in English) and nightclubs. The other center is in the west with more malls and hip areas. Night markets are spread around the city, with the most famous one up north in Shilin district. These are places for shopping and sometimes even slightly scary but delicious street food. Highly recommended! Taipei is hip and has everything for everyone. It is also very safe, so no need to worry about walking home in the middle of the night or about having your wallet stolen at every corner.

Locals

English is not that widely spoken, but the locals are very helpful and usually it is still easy to get your task done using little Chinese and hand gestures. Younger people and university students however do speak English on various levels, and are sometimes very eager to practice with you.

Climate

In the autumn, the weather is still very hot and humid once you get there. Daily temperatures of 35C are normal, and the humidity makes sure that you sweat! The warm period lasts until mid-to-late October, and then it starts to cool down. The shift from 30C to 20C feels surprisingly hard even to a Finn, so be prepared. The houses are also quite poorly insulated, so nighttime can be especially cold. Our apartment was freezing by late November during the nights (13C outside meant probably 15C inside), so a hoodie and wool socks came in handy when sleeping.

Rain is also very common throughout the autumn, even if October and November are the dryer months. The typhoon period ends in September, so if you arrive early it is likely that you’ll experience a few. Sometimes they are just hard rains, but shops and places tend to close down if there is a typhoon warning. Umbrellas are very handy and easy to get cheaply, so get a few!

Taiwan and traveling

Taiwan is a very diverse island, where you can find beautiful natural parks (Taroko), beaches and surfing (south of Taiwan and Yilan & Hualien) and everything in between. Traveling is relatively easy with high-speed trains and by renting a car or a scooter. To reach elsewhere, flying is the only option. Flights are quite cheap if you have flexibility in dates, and from Taipei it’s easy to travel to Thailand, Vietnam, the Philippines, China (visa required, do this in HK or your home country) and Japan just to name a few. Do remember that if you plan to travel to i.e. Japan or South Korea later in the semester that it can be quite cold. I had no problem finding time for travel as most of my courses were intensive-seminar style, meaning that many weekends were free or that I would only miss one lecture. Do remember the attendance requirements when planning, especially with the iMBA courses, as they are very inflexible if you exceed the allowed absence quota.

Final Comments

I very warmly recommend Taipei and National Chengchi University for exchange studies. You get to experience Asian culture without having the congestion and crazy amounts of people like in other Asian cities, everything works well, food is amazing and the city itself is just very… livable. Taipei and Taiwan are clean, surprisingly green, interesting and have so much to offer that even after 3 months I felt like I hadn’t seen nearly enough. It is a great place to learn about the Chinese culture while avoiding the more annoying aspects you would face in Mainland China and the people are very friendly and helpful.

Taipei also gives you great freedom in designing your own exchange experience: do you want to hang out at the iHouse with other students, party, travel, or just lose yourself to the crowds at a night market? You can do it all. As to studies, NCCU weighs group work and presentations, which was great for me as economics doesn’t have much of that in Aalto. Also, I was pleasantly surprised by the iMBA courses, which I would recommend to anyone going to NCCU.