Similarly, Ms Luk says her time in university was more focused on securing internships and networking than scoring As. That helped her land her current job on the operations team of a bank in Amsterdam upon graduation. It was an approach enabled by one of the notable quirks of the Dutch education system: Students can resit any exam once, at no penalty.
Now a year into her job there, she says the Netherlands’ multilingual workplace has not made her feel out of place as someone with limited conversational Dutch fluency. Her university course was taught in English.
She says the Netherlands is the place she calls home for now because it has what she finds lacking in Singapore, namely work-life balance and the ability to collect international experiences. These, she says, include enjoying more affordable concert culture and the ease of travelling around the borderless Schengen Area within the European Union.

Overcoming culture shockOf course, not treading the well-worn path is not all roses. Culture shock can prove to be a daunting and isolating challenge, especially in the initial months.
“I’ve never met someone who was like me, a Singaporean who was studying in my city long-term. Most of the ones I meet are in the Netherlands as exchange students,” says Ms Luk about her time in Tilburg.
The Singapore Students’ Association of Germany told The Straits Times it has around 20 active members, while the equivalent association in Japan has about 160. This is a stark contrast to big cities in anglophone countries with big Singaporean communities. For example, the Singapore Students Association at just one university in the US – the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign – has more than 120 students on its registry.
This scarcity of Singaporean compatriots means having to go it alone when dealing with culture shock. These range from unpleasant brushes with slow bureaucracy – fax machines and paper are preferred over e-mail in Germany and Japan – to struggling with a new language and getting used to a different way of life.
Mr Hannan Hazlan, a 26-year-old pursuing an undergraduate degree in mechanical engineering at RWTH Aachen, a public university in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, says: “I knew that Germany offered free tuition, but I didn’t know how hard learning German would be.”
He pays around €300 ($440) for a 14-week semester in administrative fees, which adds up to $880 a year.
While picking up everyday conversational German to order a meal is easy, understanding the technical German required for schooling is much tougher. The second-year undergrad credits the time he invested in learning the language prior to his course as the key reason why he was not overwhelmed by his German-language curriculum.
Besides a year spent at a language school in Berlin, he began studying German on his own during NS. Still, when he first moved there, Mr Hannan recalls having to ask locals if they spoke English.

But overcoming the linguistic challenge was worthwhile. Mr Hannan, who graduates in 2026, plans to settle down in Germany to build a career in the automotive industry, and has found a new community of friends.
As a car enthusiast, Germany was an intuitive choice for him, a way to combine his career aspirations – working for a leading carmaker such as Volkswagen or BMW – with a work culture that focuses less on grinding and hustle.
It helps that the country has an intense love of motoring. “Even people who don’t study here and are just visiting, they come to drive on the autobahn to experience driving 300km an hour or more on a public highway,” he says.
Meanwhile, Ms Sabrina, who moved to Japan with only an elementary grasp of Japanese, credits the immersion with getting her to her current level of fluency – the second-highest of Japan’s five-point scale of language proficiency.
“This was something I was very scared of doing, I didn’t want to lose face and talk to people before I was fluent in Japanese, but then eventually, I decided I had to,” she says.
Through joining groups such as her university’s entrepreneurship club and part-time sales work, her friends now include international students – who account for no more than 10 per cent of her current cohort of about 100 students – as well as Japanese co-workers and fellow business-minded locals.
Having bought a small Daihatsu car from a senior at the university for about $1,000, she now relishes driving around Kyushu and exploring the country – especially during the Covid-19 years when borders closed and tourism was at an all-time low.
She now plans to complete a two-year master’s degree at Kyushu University and contribute to the growing start-up scene in Fukuoka. She hopes to open a business that leverages the design and entrepreneurial skills she gained during her studies.
“I didn’t really put Japan on this pedestal where I thought it was going to be sparkly and beautiful all the time,” says Ms Sabrina. But she adds that these past four years studying there opened her eyes to a radically different world.
For those considering it, she has these words of advice: “I would say it’s not the right place if you’re not willing to take up the challenge of learning a new language and culture, and accept that what you already know isn’t universal.”

https://www.straitstimes.com/life/off-to-uni-in-japan-and-germany-more-singaporeans-choosing-road-less-travelled-when-studying-abroad

粗略翻译：

赴日本和德国读大学：更多新加坡人出国留学时，选择人迹罕至的道路

绝大多数出国留学的新加坡人会选择以下三个国家之一：美国、英国和澳大利亚。
根据联合国教科文组织关于全球高等教育学生流动的数据，2021 年，近十分之八的出国本地学生直奔这三个国家。
然而，一小部分但不断增长的新加坡本科生正在开辟一条鲜为人知的道路，前往荷兰、德国和日本等国家。

根据荷兰教育国际化组织 Nuffic 的数据，在荷兰求学的新加坡学位人数从 2012 年的 32 人增加到 2022 年的 109 人，增加了一倍多。
根据德国学术交流服务中心的数据，在德国，这一数字从 2013 年的 167 人增加到 2022 年的 266 人。日本学生支援机构的数据显示，日本的数字从 2008 年的 156 人激增至 2022 年的 287 人。
在这些求学替代目的地的大学就读的新加坡学生表示，他们这样做是出于负担能力、灵活性和寻求独特的国际经验的原因。

对自己和家人来说，在这些非英语国家学习在经济上更可行。例如，荷兰国际学生的学费通常在每年 9,000 欧元（13,200 新元）到 20,000 欧元之间。日本的学费平均每年约为 820,000 日元（7,300 新元）至 1,100,000 日元，而德国大学一般不收取学费，因为公立高等教育是免费的。
相较之下，英国国际学生的平均学费为 22,200 英镑（37,500 新元），而澳大利亚国际学生的典型费用为每年 20,000 澳元（17,700 新元）至 45,000 澳元。在新加坡，大多数新加坡人公立自治大学的学费在扣除补贴后每年在 7,500 美元到 12,700 美元之间，具体取决于课程。
接受《海峡时报》采访的学生表示，在荷兰、德国和日本留学的费用相对较低，这让他们有机会在不影响学位品质的情况下独立生活，否则他们可能无法获得学位。负担得起出国留学的费用。
28 岁的 Ruth Luk 女士于 2021 年移居荷兰，在北布拉班特省的蒂尔堡大学攻读商业学士学位。这项决定是在做了计算后做出的，她意识到，凭借在自闭症资源中心（新加坡）担任职业教练并从当地银行获得学生贷款的两年积蓄，她去荷兰接受教育是力所能及范围内的事。

她每年的学费高达 10,000 欧元，她用学生贷款支付了这笔费用。她的父母不需要花任何钱。她估计，由于她选择的城市的相对负担能力，她每年的生活费用约为 11,000 欧元。她还在蒂尔堡做兼职，辅导和送餐。
她很高兴自己的选择，因为三大留学目的地（澳大利亚、英国和美国）的学费和生活成本较高，这意味着毕业后将背负“更严重”的债务。

对于 22 岁的 Sabrina Suhaimi 女士来说，她最初只申请了美国和英国的工业和产品设计项目，日本并不在她的候选名单上。但 Covid-19 大流行打乱了她的计划，她开始广泛申请。
“我选择日本并坚持下去的最大原因之一是因为我可以很快获得独立，”九州大学跨学科科学与创新本科课程的四年级学生说，该课程以日语和英语授课。
她的学费一年为 535,800 日圆。凭借著从大学获得的奖学金，以及在福冈从事零售业和教书的兼职工作，她在日本城市的第二年就可以在没有父母金钱支持的情况下资助自己的学业。
与东京和新加坡等城市相比，福冈的生活成本相对较低，有助于降低她的租金和杂货费用。萨布丽娜女士在成本方面面临的主要挑战是找到负担得起的清真食品选择，这些食品的价格通常是非清真食品的两倍。