Q&A with Shanna Hollingworth, Computer Science undergrad

Unfortunately I was in a country that had one of the first cases outside of China, the first official cases were at the end of January, approximately two weeks after I arrived, so all my lectures went online by the start of February and the pandemic was a topic pretty much the whole time I was there. That being said, up to the time I left, Singapore had a really good handle on the situation so I never felt unsafe at any point. Overall, it was a great experience, I was able to meet tons of new people and experience things that I otherwise would not have been able to, as well as spend time with my family in Singapore and Malaysia and improve my mandarin significantly. During the recess week, I also had the incredible opportunity to travel around Indonesia for 10 days. But there definitely was a shadow cast on the exchange by the pandemic - given that all classes over 50 individuals were canceled pretty much all semester, it kind of took away a sense of schedule which was really important in adjusting to life in a new country and I felt like I was missing out on having a real educational experience at the National University of Singapore. Many of us found ourselves wasting full days in our rooms with nothing to do.

NUS gave us all thermometers at the start of the semester and had us upload our temps to their system twice a day every day starting beginning of February, as well as take and keep photos of the thermometers for proof later on. We were not to go on campus if this had not been done and if we had any tutorials that were still happening they would take photos of the room so they could later track who had been sitting together.  Everyone had a stash of masks that we would wear most of the time when we went out. 

Also, with Singapore being in the center of Southeast Asia, travel is one of the biggest draws of this particular exchange, and in a normal semester, most exchangers would be gone every single weekend. While for a few this still held true, for most of us this meant all of the plans we had for the semester were completely canceled and if we did travel we had to be very careful. For me, traveling during recess week was the exception and not a decision made lightly, because I wanted to be able to have at least one travel experience and it felt like the last and only chance.

All in all, it was still an incredible, once in a lifetime experience that I will certainly keep a lot of good memories from and appreciate being able to take part in, but I do regret that pretty much the entire exchange experience was affected by this pandemic and do feel like I missed out on a normal exchange experience that I had been planning since before even starting at UCalgary.

UCalgary offered to fund our return trip home, and was very willing to work with us on finding alternative solutions to completing our courses either remotely through Singapore or helping us find other ways to get the credits if that was not an option. If we dropped any courses, we were told our tuition would be refunded to us. I had to drop a Chinese language course in Singapore but still needed the credit and Mark Conliffe permitted me to enroll and do the Winter 2020 course at UCalgary despite there being only two weeks left in the semester, which I felt was very accomodating of both him and the instructor, and which I was very grateful for. We were given priority enrollment if we wanted to do another exchange in Fall 2020, and although I personally did not take this offer, I appreciated the option. We were also told that we would be given priority enrollment in Spring courses to help us catch up with our requirements if we dropped courses, but despite my persistent emailing they didn't really help me with this and I ended up being fortunate enough to get the courses I needed myself through diligent watching of the enrollment portal. The study abroad office also held a zoom meeting in late April to answer any of our questions and give us any updates.