Interview with Frances at the University of Macau
Do you wanna know how it is like to go on exchange? or are you planning on going on exchange but still haven’t decided where you gonna rank for. Sure you can check out the official university website or google the countries info but for real life experience you got to check out this interview with Frances IBMS student who is currently doing her exchange program at the University of Macau.
Are you satisfied with the level of your school?
The level of the classes at the University of Macau is lower than the classes at the HES. However, if you are not only interested in your school results but in travelling and a relaxing semester as well, I would advice you do your exchange semester in Macau. Unlike the HES the university organizes many guest lectures and other trainings and activities that could be beneficial for you and your aspirations too.
Are you taking any interesting courses and how many hours a week do attend classes?
The University of Macau offers many different courses, which diver per semester. I you want you can take classes from other faculties as well, as long as they are related to your major in Amsterdam. The courses are very interesting and teached by lecturers from all over the world (Chinese, Taiwanese, Korean, Philippinos, Australians, Germans, Colombian, etc).
As you pick your own courses you can adjust your courses to fit your preferred schedule. Most courses have 2 sessions so you can choose the time that suits you best. I have four 1½-hour on Monday and Thursday and a 3-hour course on Tuesday and Wednesday. I decided (like most of the exchange students) to only pick courses after 12:30h so you can party or do other things during the nights.
The University of Macau has the 80% attendance rule and most teachers do take attendance, I guess you can miss all classes six times during the semester, but the lecturers are a bit milder when it comes to exchange students as we miss classes due to travelling sometimes, but this does not mean you don not have to show up most of the time.
A selection of the courses you can choose are: Chinese, Chinese Culture, Chinese courses Economy, Corporate strategies, Accounting, Real Estate Management, Advertising and Communication Management, Brand Management, Auditing, Economic Policy and planning, International Organizations, Human Resources Management, Financial Markets and Institutions, Portfolio Management, Business Ethics, and many many many more.
what about the university itself? How is the location? Do they use a lot of technical stuff?
The campus of the University of Macau is great! It has everything you could need during your exchange. There is a big library with many resources; you can find materials of about everything you can think of in it. There are 4 restaurants in the campus, one of them serving Western food like sandwiches, salads, etc. The others are much cheaper and offer Chinese food.
Next to the university is a sport complex in which you can do many sports for free during 08:00h and 17:00h, you can join one of the sport clubs too for a semester. And the best thing is that there is a very nice sauna in the sport complex. About 5 minutes by bus from the university is a place where you can go swimming, during several hours during the day, free for UMAC students.
The university itself is built on top of a hill, it has about 14 floors and different buildings in which classes for different faculties are given. The University of Macau is in Taipa (one of the three islands, Macau is the largest one, Taipa the second) and Macau can be reached by bus/taxi in about 1o minutes. The university offers wireless internet to all students, but there are also two computer rooms which are open 24 hours a day. The university offers good technical facilities for both students and lecturers during classes.
Where do you live? How much do you pay and how did you get it?
Before I went to Macau I was thinking of renting an apartment in Macau with other exchange students, but when I arrived almost all exchange students decided to stay in the dormitory as it is cheap, convenient, and we would rather spend our money on travelling. It takes about 1,5 minutes by foot to go from the dormitory to the campus, there is a bus/taxi stop next to it and the travelling time to Macau is about 15 minutes.
In the dormitory you share a room with one other person (they normally put exchange students together). There is a supermarket a restaurant (only during the day), laundry service which offers like a few kilo’s of laundry a month for free. There are students rooms and internet is available in the whole dormitory. Each floor has a living room with TV, to hang-out.
- Dormitory: 650 euro per semester
- Off-campus apartment: 275 – 375 euro per month
It sounds like a nice place but what about the social life? Daily gambling? lot’s of other exchange or are you mainly hanging out with locals?
Winner winner chicken dinner!! As mentioned above Macau is the Las Vegas of Asia. Imagine yourself in a city with the largest and most expensive hotels and casino’s and a nightlife you cannot compare with Amsterdam. Especially during the first months in Macau you see yourself going to different parties night after night, most of the 5 star hotels have clubs where most exchange students dance the night away. Unfortunately these clubs are a bit more expensive for boys than for girls as all the nice clubs have “ladies nights” in which the girls can order free drinks and the boys obviously have to pay. But I can say that the nightlife in Macau is most certainly worthwhile!! Gambling is being done by most exchange students once in a while but not serious, just for fun as we talk about amounts of 100 Hong Kong Dollar (say 10 euro).
Anyway off course there are other places in Macau besides the casino’s too. There are nice hotels with shopping malls (Venetian), take the ferry to Hong Kong, the Macau tower (with the worlds highest bungee jump from a building), cinema’s, a place to go ice-skating. And you can cross the border with mainland china (you do need a visa for mainland china) and go shopping, bargaining and come back with the cheapest fake products and a 2-hour massage for 4 euro. Or wander around Macau and meet many different people in Senado square. The students that live in the dormitory also gather often during the evenings/nights to play poker, talk and watch movies.
Are there many other exchange students or are you mainly hanging out with locals?
This semester almost 80 exchange students from around 20 different countries are studying at the University of Macau. We spend most of our time with other exchange students, but all exchange students are assigned with a buddy (a Chinese student) from the University of Macau. These buddy’s are supposed to help you dealing with problems you encounter in Macau or at the university, they organize special activities as bonfires, dinners, trips to their home cities in mainland China, etc. So after a few weeks you can see everyone interacting more with the local students.
The university organizes several exchange students activities. After your arrival in Macau the university organizes an introduction week in which you get to know the other exchange students better, in which you get more information about the university and course enrollment, obviously touring around Macau during the day and during the night is a part of the exchange week as well. But the highlight of the introduction week could be dinner on the first night!!! The dinner is called “Typical Chinese Food” you go to a very small Chinese restaurant (it looks like a canteen) and get amazed by the food served that night, such as: cockroaches, snakes, frogs, maggots, pigeons, etcetera. A night you won’t forget!
During the semester the university organizes an international food festival, all exchange students receive a certain amount of money from the university and you have to cook/bake food from your own country. We had Hutspot, Stroopwafels, Appelmoes, Dutch cheese and Gehaktballen. They also organize a country performance, here you can perform something typical Dutch, sing a Dutch song or play Dutch games or anything else. All Chinese students and lecturers at the university are invited to come to these events, try our food and see our dances.
What about the spending? similar to Amsterdam?
Spending in Macau is a bit less than in Amsterdam, food is much cheaper if you want Chinese food everyday you can get a good meal including drinks for about 4 euro. However, if you prefer Western food once in a while you will pay about the same price as in Amsterdam. Parting in Macau is the same price as in Amsterdam, you do not have to pay entrance but beer and cocktails are the same price as in Europe. 0,75cl beer in the supermarket on the other hand is very cheap about 0,80 euro. As most exchange students live in the dormitory, in which you can’t cook you do spend quiet a lot of money on dinners as you do not want to eat instant noodles every night.
Things like travelling are cheap if you go by train/bus if you prefer going by plane or flying longer distances to other countries the costs of tickets are between 150 – 250 euro (Philippines, Thailand, Beijing, Malaysia, and Vietnam). If you book far in advance the prices are a bit cheaper.
Shopping in markets is off course much cheaper than buying clothes in the Netherlands, bu if you want to go to “normal” stores like Zara, H&M, Giordano, Bossini, Levi’s and Adidas the prices are the same as in Amsterdam. If you cross the border with mainland China to Zhuhai you enter a large mall with many different little shops selling fake products of everything you can imagine for cheap prices.
And the final question, HES or University of Macou?
Evil question!!! 
… I prefer HES for my regular studies as the level is higher and it will be more beneficial for my future plans. BUT!! I can advice everyone to spend your exchange semester in Macau, the other exchange students are wonderful, it is in the middle of south-east Asia so you can travel a lot, the university level is not that high so you can study a semester a bit more laid-back, the nightlife in Macau is amazing as well as the contrast between East and West. Macau is totally different than China and Hong Kong.
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Welcome Erasmus students! I know, also welcome exchange students from outside Europe! The thing is that the Erasmus experience is like a well known brand that everybody knows in Europe. Depends on what you do, you can say “what happens in Erasmus, stays in Erasmus!”
