Choosing a School - Part IV

Now I will talk about local schools. Aside from popular courses like medicine, dentistry or law, local universities are generally easier to get in than overseas universities. Aside from being a lot cheaper, you will also be at home, which is a very good perk for some who eventually decide not to go overseas for further studies.

I will cover only NUS, NTU and SMU as I dont think you will be interested in UniSim and other private universities. I am not an expert on NTU and SMU (I didnt apply) so I wont talk very much about them either. Please do correct me if I have any errors below.

In terms of culture:
NUS, well most of you have been there for research projects or field trips so I think you have had plenty of opportunities to soak in their culture and see if you like it or not. Personally I felt that it seemed more academically inclined than NTU or SMU, but I leave you to make your conclusions.

SMU projects the very 'cool' and 'fun' image, but some seniors from SMU have said that it's becoming more and more 'muggerish' due to the mix of students that they attract. Not sure what to make out of that because I didnt say it and I was never a student there, but again you make your judgments based on the feel you get when you go in etc.

In terms of academics:
If you are interested in doing medicine, NUS is the only local university thus far which has a medicine school. There has been talks lately about opening another one, but I dont think it will materialize within your time and so you got to fight for the 200-300 places in NUS medical school for undergraduate, or go to the Duke-NUS medical school for graduate studies. The NUS medical school is probably what you are looking at if you intend to practice after studying, from what I heard the Duke-NUS medical school trains you to be a researcher instead of a practicing doctor.

If you are interested in law, NUS and SMU have law programmes, however a friend doing law now tells me that NUS's programme is more established. Take it for what you will.

If you want to do sciences, SMU does not offer science, so your only choices are NUS and NTU. NUS science fac should be easy for most of you, ditto for NTU. I wont comment about which one is better because both schools have their strong and weak points, but you probably already know whether you want to go to NUS or NTU. If you dont know just apply to both.

If you want to do business, it seems like that is SMU's forte (accountancy and business)and it seems to be 1 of the more popular courses for NUS as well.

If you want to do arts and social sciences, I have no opinion other than doing psychology at any of our local universities is not as good as going to the US.

>> Choosing a School - Part IV