Record number of exchange students causes enrolment woes

By Wee Rae

PHOTO: YEO WEI LUN

Exchange student Ham Yuji is down to her last two weeks of school in the University, but she still vividly remembers the scare she faced during her first two weeks here.

The 21-year-old South Korean student had planned to clear 12 academic units (AUs) on her semester-long exchange. But by the end of the first week of the Add/Drop period, which spans over the first two weeks of school, she was not registered for a single module.

She then made five trips to her school’s administrative office, and the Student Services Centre the following week, to request to be registered for her modules. However, she was repeatedly told that the classes were full.

“I was panicking because if I could not get my classes, I cannot graduate,” said the third-year School of Social Sciences (SSS) student.

She was eventually registered for two SSS classes, though she had initially planned to take three. As such, she will need to take an additional module when she returns to her home university next semester.

Ham is one of the many exchange students who faced difficulties registering for classes due to the large intake this semester — a record 1,200 from both the graduate and undergraduate programmes.

“While there were some teething problems earlier this semester due to the larger number of exchange students… eventually, all exchange students successfully got their requisite number of courses after the Add/Drop period,” said director of the Office of Global Education and Mobility (OGEM), Professor Lalit Goel.

Nevertheless, exchange students the Nanyang Chronicle spoke to said it was a stressful process.

The Nanyang Chronicle understands that exchange students have a smaller pool of modules to choose from compared to local students, as their classes must be approved by both NTU and their home universities before they can be registered.

Master of Mass Communication student Ena Calic visited the Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information office every day during the Add/Drop period, requesting to be enrolled in classes with vacancies.

“All I could think about was not being able to graduate this year because I don’t have enough credits,” said the 24-year-old from Sweden, who managed to register for her modules only on the last day of the Add/Drop period.

Similarly, when exchange student Daniela Mizzen found that she was not registered for any classes after the first week of school, she sent multiple emails to her school to ask to be registered. But the third-year student from the School of Humanities (SoH) did not receive a reply.

The 21-year-old from the United Kingdom then went down to the school’s office twice before she was finally registered for her modules. However, she only managed to enroll in three SoH classes — instead of the five she had planned to take — due to a lack of vacancies.

Mizzen said she found the course registration process a frustrating experience, which added to the stress she felt adapting to a new environment.

The increase in the number of exchange students is due to the creation of more places for NTU students at the school’s 350 partner universities. This is because exchange programmes work on a one-to-one basis, meaning that receiving 10 students from one partner university will allow NTU to send 10 of its students to that university, said Prof Goel.

“It enables us to achieve NTU’s goal of having eight in 10 undergraduate students gaining international cultural, academic and cross-learning experience via various global programmes,” he added.

While most exchange students eventually managed to fulfil their academic requirements, some felt the university could have managed the situation better.

First-year Master of Science in Information Systems exchange student Michal Lepicek said the school’s administrative staff could have been more efficient in their response.

“When I sent emails asking to be registered for modules, I had to wait days until someone replied. When they finally did, they told me to choose something else because the module was full,” said the 24-year-old from Czech Republic.

Lepicek eventually managed to register for the modules after more vacancies were opened, but he said the process was exasperating.

He added: “If I had found out about all these problems earlier, I might just have considered cancelling my exchange.”

Matthew May, a final-year student from Nanyang Business School, suggested that the university should increase the number of classes per module if the number of exchange students enrolled continues to rise.

“Back in my university, some professors teach the same class throughout the whole day because they have many classes opened up (for that one module),” added the 19-year-old from Thailand.

But others are just glad to have gotten their modules.

Third-year Nanyang Business School student Julie Silveman is grateful that she does not need to worry about overloading when she returns to her home university.

Said the 20-year-old from the United States: “Besides those two weeks (of the Add/Drop period), my experience here has been awesome.”