The Final Week!
The last week of our projects really reminded me of the last week of 3.007, Introduction to Design in term 2. Spending many sleepless nights trying to perfect our prototype, application, video, and poster, the final week was not an easy one. However, the long-awaited final exhibition arrived. My theme, theme 6, Smart Home Products showcased our 2 prototypes, the Smart Calender, Vivi, as well as the Smart Weighing Scale, Kuka. In the final exhibition, we got to see everyone’s hard work. Most of us had the opportunity to learn new skills not taught within our first-year curriculum and seeing that we could create a prototype/product out of these new skills is truly amazing.
After the exhibition, it was time to celebrate! We started off with a celebratory dinner with everyone who played a part in our exchange here, be it our Teaching assistants, our professors as well as the lecturers who taught us in the first half of our lessons. Next, we then proceeded to a local bar, the Basement, where we could chill by cracking open a few cold ones and supporting our fellow DATE-mate perform in his DJ-ing gig.
Looking Back
Looking back at the past 13 weeks, I am really thankful that I got to experience this exchange program to learn about the Chinese culture as well as to improve my design and engineering skills through the various lessons and project. One of the few things that I will definitely miss here would be how easy it is to pay for things. With Alipay being so accessible and it having so many functions, there was no need to bring out my wallet for any notes or cards. Next, the cheap and wide variety of food China has to offer. Comparing to Singapore, the local food is cheaper and sometimes better than the food back home! (Although I am really missing some of the Singaporean food right now) Furthermore, with Waimai, their food delivering service, being so readily accessible and with so many discounts making it even cheaper than going to the store to buy the food, I could stay in the hostel forever.
Although I can’t wait to be back in Singapore, I am going to miss this place.
