Global Short Program: My two weeks in Malaysia

I’ll start my blog by saying that my university social experience before going to Malaysia had not been that interesting whatsoever. I had made 0 uni friends, and I didn’t really have any desire to make new friends. So, going into this trip, I was very anxious to meet the other students who would be coming along from UTS.

On 6 February, Saturday evening, at Sydney airport, I met a few of the other UTS students for the first time. I felt very awkward and didn’t say much. But on our 5-hour layover, I spoke to them more, and it was nice.

Once we landed in Penang, we met our buddies from USM! They were there waiting for us with signs with our names on them; it was very wholesome.

For the first few days of the trip, we had quite a few lectures and activities that we did on the USM campus. I can’t really remember much about the stuff we did on campus; I mostly remember what I did with the other UTS students. A lot of the interactions that we had in those first few days were just getting to know people.

On the 3rd day, we were there, a group of us went to an Italian restaurant in the main City area. This was one of the more memorable nights that I had in Malaysia, as looking back, I would say that this dinner was the point at which I became way more relaxed and comfortable with the other students.

Then we had the bike ride in the countryside of Penang Island a couple of days later, which was relaxing, beautiful and just an overall amazing experience.

Then, the next day, we had the Georgetown tour, where we got to fully immerse ourselves in the diverse religions of Malaysia by visiting different temples and sacred spaces around the town.

During the weekend, a group of us went to a water park on the other side of the island, that had the world’s longest waterslide. It was really fun (and long).

This trip was literally life-changing for me; I’m still friends with the people I went with and still talk to them daily. Since the program ended, I feel more confident and have the desire to make more friends and become more involved at university. I’ve also been trying to convince my friends to do a GSP for winter so they could hopefully experience what I did. My 2 weeks in Malaysia were some of the best moments I’ve ever had.

Justin Praseuthsouk
Bachelor of Business, Bachelor of Laws
Faculty-Led FEIT – Universiti Sains Malaysia, Tropical Data Science School, Malaysia