My trip to Malaysia with the Cultural Immersion programme!

This article was written by Illustration BA(Hons) student Tom.

In June 2024 I was lucky enough to get a place on the Cultural Immersion Programme with a trip to Malaysia and spent one of the best months of my life so far experiencing new cultures, delicious food, new people and, excitingly for me, a new continent!

My journey with the Cultural Immersion Programme started in February 2024 when the applications opened. I had the choice of Croatia, Sweden, Malaysia and even Canada, which all sounded like amazing places to visit, however I eventually decided to pick Malaysia as my top choice, as I had never visited Asia before. The application itself consisted of a few interview-style questions as well as a few personal questions, so that the Go Abroad team could get to know the applicants and see if they’d be a good fit for the programme. Overall, the application process was quite straightforward and I heard back that I’d received a place on the Malaysia programme by the end of March!

The next part of the process was to get funding for the trip in order. The Cultural Immersion Programme uses the Turing Scheme, which provides funding for students studying abroad based on their household income – similar to the way Student Finance works except it’s a grant-based system rather than a loan. This personally meant that I was able to get my return flight to Malaysia completely funded by the Turing Scheme, which was an incredible help, as otherwise I wouldn't have been able to finance the trip. 

So, with my documents all in order and my funding secured, I got on my flight! The whole trip involved a lot of new experiences for me – starting with my first ever long-haul flight. I flew from London Heathrow direct to Kuala Lumpur, a 13-hour flight, which I initially found very daunting. Once I got on the flight though, I found it to be an enjoyable experience with plenty of entertainment, comfortable seats and little to no turbulence. I was even able to add my dietary preferences on the airline’s website, so that I didn’t have to worry about a lack of vegetarian food on the flight. Once we had landed, I was so excited to start my trip that I barely noticed my jetlag – it was a quick 30-minute taxi ride from the airport to the accommodation, where I was greeted by the Sunway University team. The accommodation itself was the student accommodation for Sunway University, which was a nice throwback to my first year in halls of residence!

After weeks of excitement and planning, I was in Malaysia! I could hardly believe it and I was so excited to get started on the programme. I only knew one other person on the programme before coming on the trip, so it was a great chance to meet new people from both Sunway University and Lancaster University (Sunway’s partner university, who had also sent a group of students to participate in the programme) that I’d be spending the month with! The first day started with icebreakers and introductions from our Sunway University “Buddies” & staff and they also explained how the programme was structured; we’d spend Monday-Friday at Sunway University working on the “Malaysian Experience” programme, which included learning about Malaysia’s history, languages, many cultures and of course the food! We’d then have a couple of long weekends where we were free to explore Malaysia and its surrounding countries.

For me, the best parts of the “Malaysian Experience” programme were; Flora & Fauna day, where we learnt about Malaysia’s incredibly diverse natural world; GOLD day, where we visited the charity GOLD (Generating Opportunities for Learning Disability) and raised money for them by selling cookies to students on campus; the English Camp, which we put on for local primary school students to help them with learning English (I dressed up as a cow!); and of course the religion tour in Kuala Lumpur, where we visited the most beautiful Mosque and Buddhist Temple, as well as the iconic Batu caves. We were definitely kept very busy each week, with lectures on everything from Malaysian politics to laughing yoga. The Sunway staff also organised a few “Buddy Nights” for us too, which included things like karaoke and eating together at a local Mamak, which is an open-air form of restaurant that serves delicious Indian-Muslim cuisine. These Buddy Nights were a great way to get to know everyone on the programme and really helped me to make friends with everyone, which was in turn helpful for finding a group to travel with during the free weekends!