Study

Short introduction of yourself
My name is Kelly de Wit. I started studying in 2009, and choose the PTL track for my Master. When the last year of my student life dawned in, I was determined to do this at ease in a sunny environment. After all, going abroad for your study is a once in a life time opportunity. So, I went to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to do my Business Project at ResQtec in December 2014.

Contact information
Kelly de Wit
0630787997
kelly_dewit@hotmail.com

Practical information

The business project is part of the second year of the IEM master and you gain 25 ECTS for it. The Malaysian Dutch Business Council (MDBC) has contact with Dutch companies situated in Malaysia. They help students with finding an internship at these companies. The only thing you have to do is contact them and give some information about the kind of internship you are looking for (maybe they ask for a CV or motivation letter as well).

Because already a few students from Lugus went to Kuala Lumpur, it is also possible to find an internship via one of those students.

MDBC sends any options for a project, if there is one. When I saw the project at ResQtec, I was immediately excited. So after a conversation at the Head office in Holland, I was ready to go to Kuala Lumpur.

Preparation

What were important items that you brought?

Credit card, summer cloths, vaccinations,

How did you travel (cheap) and how did you arrange that?

In Asia, travelling is generally cheap. Air Asia provides a lot of cheap flights. In taxi's, make sure you drive on the meter.

Did you need any visa or other official papers?

Because MDBC takes care of your work visa there is no problem with applying for this. The tourist visa is valid for three months.

Living

Did you arrange a room or place to stay in advance?

There was a Facebook where everybody that was going to do an internship in Malaysia (from the Netherlands) was a member of. There are two buildings with rooms in which Dutch interns live together. Those houses are passed on via the Facebook to the new group. If you don't like to live with other Dutch students, there are also other possibilities.

How expensive is living over there?

Not that expensive. For the room you pay between 200 and 270 euro's per month inclusive. For this price, you also have a swimming pool on the rooftop of the building and a gym. Local food is really cheap (and really nice!), I think I cooked only twice myself during my stay.

Experience

How were the first couple of weeks?

I had to get used to the temperature, for the rest it was great immediately.

How did you experience studying abroad?

I would not have missed it!

How was the total experience? (Country, people, living, culture)

Fantastic! Because both Malaysian, Indian and Chinese cultures live closely together in Malaysia, you experience a lot of different traditions, foods and believes.

Did you experience a culture shock?

With Thai Pusam (Google for it), I had some kind of culture shock. Kuala Lumpur, however, is already pretty Western built.

How was the food?

THE BEST!!

What was better than expected?

Living with Dutch people. I was a little sceptic about going abroad and sharing an apartment with Dutch students again.  Only I made friends for life here, which I still see in the Netherlands. Furthermore, you can actually determine for yourself how much you involve in this. At the company I worked, I was the only foreign student. My colleagues were really nice and wanted to teach me a lot about their culture and traditions.

What was worse than expected?

Nothing.

How was your overall experience with the city?

Really diverse. I lived in Little India, but you can go to China Town. There is a big area with pubs etc., you have extremely fancy places but also the real poor areas.  You can get all experiences in one city and you can travel within this city very easily, by train or taxi.

Travel

Did you have any chance to see something of the country?

I saw a lot. Because Malaysia is quite centrally located, it is very easy to go away in the weekends. I have seen several islands of Malaysia which have the most blue water I have seen. You can dive here as well. I also went to the jungle of Malaysia and saw the Cameron Highlands. When there was a long weekend off, I went to Bali and Singapore. After my internship I went travelling and saw Vietnam and Thailand.

There is no limit, because flights are cheap, a lot is possible!