The recent intake of inbound exchange students have come from 19 countries – coming from as far afield as France, the USA and Australia but also from countries closer to Malaysia such as Vietnam and Japan. These students are taking a wide variety of courses covering international business, communications, computer science, mechanical engineering and hospitality management amongst others. At the beginning of each semester, a range of cultural activities to help these students ease into life at Taylor’s University and Malaysia are organised.
With the support of the Best Buddies Connect Ambassadors, a KL Familiarisation trip is regularly organised to give these students a first-hand look around the city. But there is much more to see in Malaysia, and so Ms Lisa Lim (GMO) and Ms Ray Chel Ng, from the Taylor’s Global Exchange Network, organised a Malacca City Tour. As Ray Chel Ng said, “We thought that the Malacca day-trip would be a greatopportunity as it gives the exchange students the opportunity to experience what Malaysia has to offer beyond KL…….and I really liked how I got to share Malaysia, my home country, with these exchange students”. Malacca has a very interesting global history, as over the centuries it has been a colonial outpost of the Portuguese, The Dutch, and the British empires, and the tour covered some of its famous landmarks.
Laura Hughson from Robert Gordon University in Scotland (UK) said, “I really enjoyed this trip, I liked learning about the history - and I got to learn a lot of extra facts about Malaysia that I just didn’t know”. While Hanifati Prasetyani, who is on exchange from the London School of Public Relations in Jakarta (Indonesia) said, “I really liked hearing about the history of Malacca, I found it very interesting. I also liked the opportunity to meet the other international students”. While Le Ngoc Thien, who is on exchange from Ho Chi Minh University of Technology and Education in Vietnam added, “I really enjoyed the Malacca trip; it was very interesting and enjoyable. I am so happy that I have this opportunity to be in Malaysia” - (Global Matters 2018)