A Moment of Joy and Pride: International Degree Students’ Farewell Party

On June 1, 2019, the NTU Office of International Affairs organized the first International Degree Students’ Farewell Party to celebrate the academic achievements of this year’s international graduates. International graduate degree students from 18 countries, namely the United States, the Netherlands, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Brazil, Guatemala, Haiti, Vietnam, Malaysia, India, Indonesia, Ukraine, Iraq, Turkey, Ecuador, Swaziland, and Burkina Faso, brought family members and friends to jointly celebrate their graduation.

The event was officially opened with a speech by Executive Vice President and Vice President for International Affairs, Prof. Chiapei Chou (周家蓓), who welcomed the fresh graduates and their guests to this special event and wished the recent graduates success for their next steps. Subsequently, some of the recent international graduates took the stage to share their reflections and lessons learned during their time at NTU.

For example, Tomo Aoi (葵朋), an electrical engineering graduate from Japan, shared his difficulties when first arriving at NTU. In the beginning, he hesitated to ask for support and help and—as a result—his academic performance suffered. To overcome the challenges, he started to ask questions and engage in discussions with his classmates, and his academic performance quickly improved.

The finance master’s graduate Audrey Lau (劉巧儀) from Singapore shared her memories as a member of the NTU tennis team, where she made many new friends and got plenty of opportunities to improve her Chinese. She also thanked the faculty members at the College of Management for their support and guidance and expressed that she considered herself very lucky to have found a job in Taiwan.

Omer Bahadir Celik (德歐傑), a graduate from the Department of Mechanical Engineering, told the audience that although he had learned Chinese for a year before studying at NTU, he quickly realized that his Chinese language proficiency was not sufficient. As a result, he prioritized improving his Chinese and in doing so experienced the friendliness of the Taiwanese people and the campus community at NTU.

The civil engineering graduate Yahya Namiq Abdullah (朴德亞) from Iraq thanked his teachers for the guidance throughout his time at NTU and the administrative staff for helping him to smoothly integrate into his new life. He had never imagined being able to master the Chinese language.

Vu Tuan Pham (范俊于) from Vietnam, who graduated with a doctoral degree in public health, expressed his pride to be a student of NTU. He emphasized the quality of NTU’s learning environment, faculty, and administrative staff, as well as the abundant help he had received everywhere during his time at NTU. He was a member of the NTU Vietnamese Student Association and loves playing football with his classmates. The only regret he has about his time in Taiwan is that he did not perfect his Chinese language skills.

During the last years, NTU has done everything to develop and implement campus internationalization. International students can benefit from generous scholarships and help and guidance from the admission process until graduation. Through these measures, NTU strives to create an excellent learning environment, educate global talent, and attract outstanding students from all over the world.