New Sights and Cultures to Learn
By: Antonia Solar, CAS ’25
Photo along the Singapore River.
My first week in Singapore, I explored the area around my hotel a lot. The Singapore river goes all along the city to the Marina Bay area. I walked a lot along the river to see the different sights around. I was really glad to meet with the other students doing the same GRIP program as me. From the very first meeting we really hit it off, which made me glad because I was nervous that I would feel lonely being in a new country. I explored a lot of the Hawker centers (food centers) in Singapore such as Newton, Lau Pa Sat, Maxwell, Hong Lim and tried a lot of the food.
The overall experience was really new to me, the city felt very different from other places I had been in terms of the general culture, the incredibly futuristic architecture and clean streets. I felt very safe walking around at any time of the day and it was a welcome change from the culture I have in my home city. I learned many new things, such as the Singaporean coffee names Kopi O (black coffee with sugar), Kopi (cofee with condensed milk), Kopi C (coffee with evaporated milk). I also learned a bit about Singlish, which is a mix of Singapore’s languages (English, Mandarin, Malay, Tamil). There are words such as lah, leh, loh that are added into sentences to give different exaggerations. I found this very interesting as while English is an official language, there is still a different spin put on it that has its own learning curve.
With the other GRIP people, we also had a lot of fun exploring the different malls around. Singapore has a lot of malls that are connected underground so a person can walk through a lot of the city solely underground. This is very convenient as it rains very often in Singapore. There are also many photo booths around that are nice for a memory of the experience. I went multiple times with my GRIP friends and we had a ton of fun trying on different costumes and taking pictures with fun poses. Overall, Singapore had a lot of things to explore that are good for learning about the culture as well as experiencing new things and seeing new sights.
The Global Research and Internship Program (GRIP) provides outstanding undergraduate and graduate students the opportunity to intern or conduct research abroad for 8 to 12 weeks over the summer. Participants gain career-enhancing experience and global exposure that is essential in a global workforce.