Study in Taiwan Experience

My name is Arrad Iskandar. I come from Aceh, Indonesia. I enrolled in the master degree program in National Chiao Tung University (NCTU). I came to Taiwan in February 2014 and was welcomed by very cold weather (around 10^o C), which I’d never experienced in my country. I can say that from the very first moment I set my foot on this beautiful island, I’d literally got a new experience. At that time, I shivered from excitement and of course, cold. 

If I will have to talk about the details on Taiwan education, especially in my university, I’ll need to write a whole book to describe the greatest experience this university provides.  I was so lucky that I got a chance to study in one of the best university of Taiwan. The school facilities, the systems, the curriculums, the environments and even the study atmosphere are really more conducive to learning, well-organized and well-scheduled. The professors really encourage, motivate and support students inside or outside the class. All I can say is, this is the perfect place and environment to study and gain more knowledge. Not to mention the extracurricular activity such as cultural trip, buddy program, and host family program that gave me closer look to Taiwanese culture and life. I also make a lot of new friends not only from Taiwan but from many places over the world such as Africa, America, Middle East, Europe, and even from Indonesia. 

In spite of all of those things I mentioned before, there was a thing that amazed me more, was the respect to other people’s right to practice their own religion. As Muslim, we need to pray five times a day; based on that need, the university provides the prayer room for us, so that we can do our prayer comfortably. In my personal experience, there was a time when the prayer time was the same time when the class begins. My friends and I talked to the professor that we needed to pray before we went to the class so we would be a bit late, When we went into the class we found out that the professor and other classmates were waiting for us to finish our prayer, then the professor started the class as soon as we got there.  

I love travelling so much. Honestly, in the beginning, I thought that travelling in Taiwan was only about Taipei 101, but then I found that actually there are so many beautiful and extraordinary places. In these two years, I already travelled a lot of places. I went to Ali Mountain (Alishan -red) to watch the sunrise from more than 2,000 meters above the sea level, enjoyed the most beautiful sunset that I’ve ever seen in Tamsui Beach, Taipei, touched my first snow in Hehuan mountain (HeHuanShan –red), flew the sky lantern in Pingxi and so much more. The moment I thought that I’ve explored Taiwan enough, that’s the moment when I realized that I’ve actually never explored it enough.