Arweena Panya, Chulalongkorn University (Thailand)

About School

I’m from Chulalongkorn University, the oldest and most prestigious university in Thailand. Its located in Bangkok, the capital of Thailand. Currently, I am studying Finance. The courses are pretty much the same as what NUS offer so I can transfer most of the modules back to my university.

I would say that the life back in Chulalongkorn University is pretty much the same here. Unlike NUS, our school is located right at the city centre, so there are a lot of places to go after school. We have CCAs as well, but I would not say its as intense as the CCAs you have here. The CCAs probably will hold sessions once a week.

In our university, we have to wear uniforms. In Thammasat University, they can wear any kind of skirt but must be black. For our university, we are required to wear blue long plaid skirt, which is unique as compared to other schools. Chulalongkorn University was set up by a king, hence, we have to be more respectful and conservative. You can purchase the skirt at many different shops. You just have to inform them that you are a student of Chulalongkorn and they will show you the skirts available accordingly.

In my school there is a big event where almost all the business students will attend. At this event, students could join to sell products and make profits, which will be donated to an organisation. It is not compulsory, but many students do sign up for this event. The students can source for products and sell it to not only individual customers but companies as well. There were students that sold air-conditioner to a company and earn a profit of more than 100,000 Baht. The products sold can be anything like laptops, snacks, etc.

About Bangkok

There are a lot of places to go. Since many of you might have visited Bangkok before, I will not talk about the common ones. There is a temple that is really famous called “Wat Phra Kaew”. The King’s Palace and Cho Phraya River is also located near-by. At the river, you can have your meals there as there are many restaurants with a really good view. As the river is very long, you can take a boat to other attractions as well. If you go to Chulalongkorn University, there will be a lot of shopping malls around like Siam Paragon and Central World.

When you are there, you can try After U dessert Café/ They sell really good dessert. It’s something similar to bingsu. They have Matcha, Strawberry Cheesecake flavour. Personally, I really love eating at this café. You should also try Mamaohho. It is where you have instant noodles cooked with various type of ingredients that you choose like pork, shrimp and tom yum soup base. There is a reason for the name as well. “Mama” is the brand of the instant noodle is around for a very long time so we call it “mama” instead of instant noodle. “ohho” is essentially “OMG” in Thai, so when you combine the words, it gives you the dish name. This dish can be found in Samyan. This place is known to have many good food as well! If you like to have something good in the central, this is the place to go as well. Many students from our university will hang around this place as it is nearby too.

If you want to travel to other places, let’s say somewhere with beaches, you can visit Krabi or Phuket and other island in the southern part of Thailand. If you want to visit traditional sites, then I would suggest the northern part of Thailand. There are many mountains and temples. There is a famous temple in Chiang Mai called Wat Phra That Doi Suthep which you can visit. Also, the weather in the northern part of Thailand tend to be nicer as compared to Bangkok, especially during winter season. In Chiang Mai, you can also try the horse drawn carriage where they will bring you around the area!

In general, the accommodation in Thailand is really cheap. If you pay about $400 a month, you will get a big and rather luxurious room. If you are concern about the price, you can find places that are slightly further away from the central. The facilities provided will probably be similar, but the prices will differ.

The traffic in Bangkok is really bad. It may take you up to an hour to travel maybe 2km by car. If its peak hour, it will be even worse. Therefore, it may be more convenient to take the MRT. But when compared to Singapore’s complex MRT system, Thailand’s MRT is not as convenient as it does not take you to that many places. Hence, in the end, you might want to take a taxi or grab. Be careful when you take a taxi as the drivers can be very sly and charge you at a higher price. This also apply to Tuk Tuks. You should probably ask a local or go with a local to prevent such situation. Otherwise, you can use grab as well.