Hi, welcome to my very first post~ So here I am deciding to write a blog. Actually, this writing thing has always been in my mind since a long time ago, but never took it seriously :”)
So, here I am~ just want to share a lil bit of my life update at present time. Hope you enjoy reading it!
I am from Indonesia and currently living in Taipei, Taiwan. Initially, I came to take master degree majoring in Architecture. Then two years after, which is this year, I (finally) graduated~ Right now, I work at a local architecture firm here. Overall I enjoy my life in this small yet rugged island.
Btw, this is the first time I live outside of my house. Living abroad is one of my biggest dreams since I was kid. In the past I always dreamt and wondered how would it be to live somewhere far from home. “It would be very fun!” I thought at that time. Hmm… if I’m able to tell my past self, what would I tell her? “Yes, it is. You will have so much fun, but not all the time 😝 most of the time you would be working very hard to achieve the fun part. So just prepare yourself ☺️”
My story in Taiwan began after my bachelor graduation. I took a gap period of 5 months after it to prepare everything I need to live in Taiwan. Then, I decided to apply master degree in two universities in Taiwan, which are NTUST in Taipei and Fengchia University in Taichung. Since it was Spring admission, so my options were limited. What my focus when choosing university: the world ranking, Taiwan ranking, department ranking, scholarship they offer, what department open for Spring, do they offer English program (since I couldn’t speak Chinese at all).
Here’s useful website I often used as reference at that time:
- https://www.studyintaiwan.org/university#
- http://tecindonesia.blogspot.com/
- https://admissions.ntust.edu.tw/
The plus point of most scholarships in Taiwan is that they don’t require you to have contract after graduation. So it’s free to choose whether you want to live or work everywhere after the graduation. Usually after graduation, most people that I know want to have work experience first in Taiwan and save some money, of course, since salary rate here was quite high compared to Indonesia, but the amount really depends on which field you are.
From my experience, applying job in Taiwan as foreigners who graduated from Taiwanese university is quite tricky. In one side, your alma mater was highly appreciated by the recruiter, they think highly of the university name written on your CV, especially if your university is top ranked. On the other hand, in my case, you are considered as the same as Taiwanese and required to be able to communicate using Mandarin, at least, on basic conversation level. If you don’t have ability to speak Chinese at all, you would be very hard to get accepted unless you are very lucky!
In future post, I want to share my experience of applying work permit as full time job position in Taiwan. Since my current company had never hired foreigner before, they helped me from beginning to make work permit for the first time. It was quite long journey because of lack of some documents and the information about the requirements are not that clear.
My main source of information about applying work permit were from the office located in Ximen area and also this website:
https://ezworktaiwan.wda.gov.tw/en/
That’s all for now, hope you enjoy your day!
monicaintaipei 