Study Abroad Diaries: Hannah Burnett – post 5
Student experience 30th March 2020
Hannah Burnett is currently studying at NTU, Singapore. She sent us this post from early March 2020. Travel advice is changing frequently at the moment and we urge all students studying and travelling abroad to follow government guidance, as Hannah did. We’re delighted that she has been able to make the most of her time studying overseas, whilst ensuring that she follows the local advice to ensure that she remains safe and well during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Semester 2 Courses and Recess Week
In semester 2, I chose to do courses with different methods of teaching and assessment than the ones in semester 1 or at home in Manchester. One of my courses (Metal Mediated Reactions) employs a ‘flip learning’ technique which means that the lecture content, along with some practice questions and quizzes, is online and we review it each week before our 2 hour tutorial where we work in small groups to answer the tutorial questions.
Another course (Current Topics in Synthetic Organic Chemistry) has no exams or midterms and is completely assignment based. This course focuses on research and is more about breadth than understanding; the first half of the course had a series of lectures each week covering a different topic which we then wrote a brief summary about or completed an assignment on. In the second half we pick a research paper to write a 4-page report on and make a video to present the topics in the paper to a general audience. This is a great course for improving scientific communication and writing skills. Finally, the lab course I chose to take this semester consists if a 2 hours lecture and 3-hour lab session each week, focusing on analytical techniques, such as HPLC and gas chromatography, in an industrial context. The lectures and lab sessions compliment each other well, with an aim to prepare us for a career in analytical chemistry.
Taiwan
In February, I went to Taiwan with a group of friends to visit the annual Pingxi lantern festival in a small village called Shifen. The lantern festival consisted of several mass lantern releases in the evening which were unforgettable. We were given a lantern and some markers to write messages on it, then it was lit and we waited for the countdown to release it. During the day, we visited the local waterfall and old street, which had a train line running down the middle and loads of street food stalls.
The rest of our trip to Taiwan was spent in Taipei. We went on a free walking tour with a group called LikeItFormosa who explained the history of Taiwan and the stories of places around Taipei. We also went to the viewing deck of Taipei 101 to see all of Taipei at night! A lot of Japanese influence was seen around Taipei, in the form of colourful street art, Shibainus on walks (Japan and Taiwan’s favourite dog) and Karaoke places.


Malaysia and Vietnam
During recess week, in the first week of March, I went to Vietnam with my dad. I met my dad in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, where we spent a day visiting the Batu caves, Petronas towers and other local attractions. KL was also great for shopping, with large shopping centres everywhere you turn and with prices lower than Singapore and the UK. After KL we flew to Vietnam where we visited Hanoi, Halong bay, Hue, Danang, Hoi An and Ho Chi Minh City. One thing that all these places had in common is that they all have amazing fried spring rolls! Some of my highlights were seeing the water puppet theatre in HCM City; going on a cycling tour and meeting a water buffalo in Hoi An; kayaking in Halong bay; visiting the Imperial citadel in Hue; and climbing the marble mountains in Danang. There was so much to see and do and hopefully my holiday snaps can give you a better idea of what it was like.


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