Kings Student Money Mentors

Hello again and welcome this blog post detailing my semester abroad at the National University of Singapore (NUS)! In this blog, I will tell you more about the university experience at NUS and how this compares to London, as well as how I got to experience some of the wonders of both Singapore and South East Asia without breaking the bank.

As NUS is so large, it has its own system of shuttle buses for students which are completely free. This means that I can go directly to my lectures without spending a single penny or I could get to my nearest MRT station (the much cleaner Singaporean version of the Tube) for free. Speaking of the MRT system, as Singapore is such a small country (it is smaller than London!), it means that it is very easy to get around if you take advantage of its transport system. Like the Tube, you can use a contactless card when you enter and exit but the prices are much cheaper, with most of my fares amounting to around £1 or less. The buses are also different, as it works on the same system as the MRT where you tap on and off and fares are generally similar to the MRT, unlike the flat fare for any bus journey in London.

This makes visiting all of the attractions in Singapore very cheap and I took advantage of my NUS student status, as this got me discounted or even free tickets to many of the museums of Singapore, with my favourites being the ArtScience Museum, the National Museum of Singapore and the Asian Civilisations Museum. There are also a lot of things to do that are almost completely free, such as seeing the natural beauty and wildlife of Singapore at places such as the Botanic Gardens or the Treetop Walk at MacRitchie, where you’ll encounter a lot of wild monkeys. My personal favourite was taking a bumboat (£2.28 each way) to an island called Pulau Ubin, where we rented some bicycles and toured the almost-uninhabited island, where we found hidden shrines and a lot of wildlife, from monkeys to monitor lizards to crabs to herons!

Another key part of my exchange was travelling around South East Asia as I was also to visit Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia during the semester. As Malaysia and Indonesia were so close to Singapore, it was easy for me to take day trips to Johor Bahru (JB) in Malaysia and Batam Island in Indonesia. Both JB and Batam were much cheaper than Singapore in terms of food and activities such as go-karting. Taxi prices were also lower, with 15-minute rides through Batam costing around £1.50 (though you are on the back of a motorbike!)

I visited Vietnam and Cambodia with my family at the end of the semester and I also went on a week-long trip to Thailand with my friends during recess week. We ended up going to Bangkok and Chiang Mai which are both absolutely beautiful places. We decided to use a budget airline for all of our flights such as Scoot or Thai AirAsia, with our flights from Singapore to Bangkok and then Chiang Mai to Singapore totalling around £200, though this would have been a bit cheaper if we booked earlier. We decided to get an AirBnB as there were 5 of us and this worked out as being cheaper than a hotel. We took advantage of the cheap transport options such as tuk-tuks (with prices starting from £1 for short trips) whilst we were there. Both places were a lot of fun, with Bangkok having such high energy levels and some beautiful Buddhist temples with Chiang Mai having its own distinct vibe with its old city. We even got to go to a sanctuary that rescues abused and mistreated elephants.

Overall, living as a student at NUS is definitely cheaper than my experience as a student living in London during my first year, as many of my key outgoings such as rent, food and transport were a lot lower. However, the cost of living in Singapore for regular people is generally slightly higher than it is for London so I would probably be telling a different story if I didn’t get on-campus accommodation at CAPT. But I’m so glad that I did because I got to experience so many new things and make a lot of new friends. If you’re thinking about a semester abroad, I would definitely go for it and I cannot recommend Singapore highly enough!

Tom Appleby
King’s Student Money Mentor
Part of Money & Housing Advice

The King’s Student Money Mentors blog shares our students’ personal experiences and thoughts on money-related topics. Any reference, opinions or recommendations on a particular company/brand are only the views of the student(s) who wrote the blog post. King’s College London, the Money & Housing Advice service and the Money Mentor project do not share the views in the blogs nor endorse any of the companies mentioned. Readers should conduct their own research before using any companies mentioned in our blog posts. 

Hi everyone, my name is Tom and I was lucky enough to have just spent the semester abroad away from the cold and dreary weather of London and instead in the beautiful, and very hot, country of Singapore! Spending 5 months in South East Asia studying and travelling was one of the best experiences of my life so far. In this blog, I will share how I budgeted for my semester abroad and how my experience as a student in Singapore compared to London.

Firstly, as part of the application process of the KCL Study Abroad team, I needed to demonstrate that I researched all the relevant costs of studying abroad. In my case, this involved looking at fees such as those involved in processing my student visa (£70.60), the costs of flights to Singapore (around £300 one way), as well as the cost of accommodation, with rent ranging from £300-530 per month on campus to £400-1,100 per month off-campus. I also included other costs such as the reduced tuition fees I would need to pay to KCL, administrative fees by NUS (National University of Singapore), travel insurance, costs of public transport, SIM Card and the rough costs of travelling to other countries in South East Asia such as Thailand and Indonesia. Doing this research meant that I knew what to expect when I arrived, which was one less thing to worry about.

After I was accepted to go to NUS, I was given on-campus accommodation at one of their residential colleges known as the College of Alice and Peter Tan (CAPT) which is a bit like the Oxbridge model in the UK, as local students can apply to one of these colleges and take courses that are specific to that college.

My rent for my room at CAPT was £141 a week which included my room, a shared living area, bathroom and a meal plan which meant that most of my breakfasts and dinners during the week were paid for. This is significantly cheaper than London, especially when you take the cost of food into account. There was a great variety of options in the canteen from Malay to Chinese to Indian to Western food, with both a veggie and a meat option for each. Our meal plan also included around £29 that we could spend at select canteens on campus like The Deck, which had loads of different food stalls and options, with my favourite chicken and rice dish costing a mere £2.58 per portion!

I lived in an area called University Town (UTown) which has a park, lecture theatres, a gym, sports halls and an infinity pool, with both the gym and infinity pool completely free to students! There are even some recognizable brands like Subway and Starbucks, where I could get my daily English Breakfast tea and a cookie ☕ 😋. But my favourite part of UTown was its food courts such as Fine Foods and Flavours, as you could get amazing regional dishes like Ho Fun noodles, Hokkien Mee and scrambled egg rice for around £2.50 or less.

I also cannot write about Singapore without mentioning its world-famous hawker centres, which are massive food courts where you can get a cheap breakfast, lunch or dinner. A meal here would cost around £2, with my favourite dishes being carrot cake (which is actually a savoury radish dish and has neither carrot nor cake), kaya toast and sambal stingray. If you’re going to Singapore, I would recommend visiting Tekka Centre in Little India, Maxwell in Chinatown and Newton in central Singapore. I’m definitely going to miss these the most!

Tom Appleby
King’s Student Money Mentor
Part of Money & Housing Advice

The King’s Student Money Mentors blog shares our students’ personal experiences and thoughts on money-related topics. Any reference, opinions or recommendations on a particular company/brand are only the views of the student(s) who wrote the blog post. King’s College London, the Money & Housing Advice service and the Money Mentor project do not share the views in the blogs nor endorse any of the companies mentioned. Readers should conduct their own research before using any companies mentioned in our blog posts.