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This is going to be a really long, detailed report about my exchange semester at NUS. Some parts are just about administrative processes and paperwork, which may be boring, so feel free to skip and read as needed. I’m simply going into a lot of detail as I myself wished I had known everything about what to expect before my exchange. Also, get ready to remember a whole lot of abbreviations. ...

There were many things I wish I did differently for my exchange, so I’ve decided to break down everything I would do or wish I’d known if I were to do this all over again. Pre-departure Glossary: SEA: Southeast Asian EA: Eastern Asian AC: Air Conditioning OSE: Offsite Enrollment IPA: In-principle Approval NIR: National Immunisation Registry Course Selection Check NUSMods for course reviews by previous local students to get a grasp of what the courses are like. If you want to travel: Pick courses that have no midterms (then you’re free to travel for ~11 days during recess week) Recess week is good for travelling to Australia + other SEA countries. EA countries (China, Japan, Korea) are likely near 0 degrees, so I’d save that for reading week/exam week. Pick courses that have no final exam (then you’re free to travel for ~25 days) Reading week + exam week is great for travelling to EA countries, but try avoiding Golden Week to avoid crowds. Try cramming your courses into consecutive such that you will have 3-day weekends (or even better, 4-day weekends). If you aim to live in a hall or a house, avoid selecting courses with evening lectures (6-9 PM), because they are likely to interfere with hall/house events. If you are aiming for PGPR or UTR, then there won’t be many events to worry about skipping. On-Campus Accommodation At NUS, there are three types of accommodations: ...

Warning: I am not a UI/UX designer. I haven’t learnt anything formally, so my method of designing interfaces is essentially: Make sure I can figure out how to use it fairly intuitively Make it not look like an eyesore Design 0.1: Paper Sketch As I am not very familiar with design software, I decided to go with my most comfortable design medium: pen and paper. Here’s my initial design. (Pardon the illegible handwriting) ...

When I tried to use habit trackers, they actually worked for the first couple weeks. However, I soon noticed a few shortcomings with some habit trackers: Gamifying habit tracking doesn’t seem to work for me, as it abstracts away the actual habit a bit too far away. If my goal is to play a game, doing the habit itself feels like a chore. I want my habit tracker to be very in-touch with reality. Habit trackers with friend features don’t work very well for me because my competitive spirit ends up getting in the way. If I feel like I’m falling behind, I’d want to quit, and if I’m too far ahead, it’d get boring and I’d also quit. Or I might be tempted to skip the habit altogether to get easy points and win against others. I feel like habits should be an individual thing. Some habits are easier to others, and some are harder for others. It’s fundamentally unfair for a habit to lead to a standardized score which can be compared with others. Some habit trackers lack good visual representation for off-days. For example, strength training is something that should not be done on a daily basis as that may put too much strain on the body. However, with some habit trackers, it feels like I’m breaking a streak when I’m taking a rest day. I feel it’s important to recognize when I’m supposed to not do the habit, but still have it count somehow. Since habit trackers are basically a phone-only thing, with the only method of recognizing a habit as complete being me manually tapping a button, there is a lot of friction when it comes to habit tracking. What I mean by friction is that I need to go out of my way to mark a habit as complete, even though the act of completing the habit isn’t actually part of performing the habit. For example, tapping the checkmark on my phone to signify that I have done the laundry doesn’t actually contribute to doing the laundry. An attempt to fix the habit tracker The main purpose of the Habit Management System (HMS) is to create a new type of habit tracker that reduces the amount of friction when it comes to marking habits as complete, while having a clean user interface that addresses the remaining non-friction-related points mentioned above. My idea to achieve this involves a habit tracking app, similar to the ones that already exist, but with an IoT interface on the cloud side that allows sensor modules to automatically check off something as done. ...

Course Selection At Aalto, our course selection process simply involves checking Sisu (our course management system) and registering for courses during their registration period. They rarely check for prerequisites, and it’s almost guaranteed to get any course you need. Registering for exercise sessions is done alongside the course registration; you simply select which exercise group you wish to be in as part of the course registration process. It sounds a little complicated, but in reality, it involves ticking a few checkboxes before hitting the “register” button. ...

Landing After landing in Singapore, I went to pick up my SIM card from one of Singtel’s pickup points. Upon picking up my SIM, the person working at the kiosk also offered to sell me a NETS card. Transport/General-use Prepaid Cards Singapore has a couple prepaid cards they use. These cards are usually used for public transport, but some of the types of cards can be used elsewhere for paying for other things. The two primary ones used are EZ-Link cards and NETS cards. Both can be used for public transport as well as for purchases, but NETS cards are much more accepted as a general payment method compared to EZ-Link cards. ...

Applying In January 2023, I applied to go on an exchange semester at the National University of Singapore (NUS) for spring of 2024. It was a all-in decision, as in that if I didn’t get the opportunity, I wouldn’t go on exchange at all. Luckily, my application was successful and I was nominated to go on the exchange by my home university, despite NUS being the second most applied to exchange destination at Aalto. ...

To recap, the requirements I set for this systems are the following: Be digital. Support multiple devices and syncing. Allow the user to remain in full control of their data. Be easy to set up. Being Digital In order to tackle requirements 2 and 3, requirement 1 will have to be fulfilled. In other words, the system will have to be bundled into an app. As most people already have their phones on them at all times, there is no more convenient option than just using an app and not needing to bring any additional equipment with oneself on the go. ...

Core Concepts Before starting with this project, I want to cover some core concepts I want. Namely: Ease of use All commonly-performed things (e.g., adding a task, scheduling a task) should be the easiest things to do in the app. Reducing usage difficulty is key to making me stick to using it. Out of sight, out of mind. I tend to get easily distracted by what I should be doing due to excess information. Thus, for dashboards or similar screens where I only need to be aware of what I need to do next, all events that I can do nothing about should be hidden away or made less prominent. The inverse is true. For example, on a task management screen, I want all the tasks I am able to complete right now to be visible so that I am aware of their existence. Multilevel Prioritization I like to have at least two levels of priority. An example of this “multilevel” prioritization is having two categories, personal projects and schoolwork. Obviously, schoolwork is prioritized over personal projects. Within the schoolwork category, there could be my assignments which are prioritized by deadline or difficulty (or both), while within the personal projects category, there could be “IoT alarm clock” and “Desk lamp, " which are prioritized as I see fit. I feel like this is necessary because I have many categories of tasks in my life, and having to prioritize all tasks in one prioritization level makes things messy. Creation + Scheduling separation For me, I notice that I tend to have two modes when it comes to creating tasks: idea mode and scheduling mode. In idea mode, I come up with tons of discrete tasks, while in scheduling mode, I figure out when I want to execute those tasks. I think it is important to keep these two separate, as when I come up with tasks, I’m often in situations where I don’t want to dwell on the idea for too long (commuting, in the middle of another task, etc). Therefore, if I have to schedule it, I might do it hastily, or worse, I would skip marking the idea down altogether as it is too much of a hassle. Subtasks I feel like it’s important to have subtasks because one major way to reduce the friction when starting a task is to break a task down into smaller pieces. However, if I simply turn all subtasks into full tasks, it makes the system very cluttered. Evaluation Using the core concepts discussed earlier, I will now walk through some existing systems I have attempted to use. This is going to be how I’ll isolate some good ideas from things I have already used. ...

Background I have rather terrible self-organizational skills. For the last 4-5 years, I’ve essentially been just winging it. To meet the deadlines and requirements given to me by life, I’ve been using solely a calendar (for tracking very important events) and sheer will. In a nutshell, I’ve just been controlled by the demands of life. Tasks are usually only done when the deadline is looming over me, and I have almost no hobbies. I do however manage to rapidly complete projects if a sudden wave of motivation hits me, but if hardships hit or it takes longer than expected, the project gets abandoned. And yes, having a heavy procrastination problem is a given. ...