UCSI University: Experience As An International Student
I was a young South African girl who had never heard of UCSI University before I came to study in Malaysia. The only University I knew of was Limkokwing University because they have many branches in Africa. I asked my agent to help me get a place at Limkokwing University but he recommended USCI University for me since it was highly ranked. At the time of me applying to UCSI University, it was very hard for me to get information about the school from its website. What startled me, when it came to the schools website was the fact that there were no Africans as top students. I just brushed it off and thought perhaps the school didn't have much Africans at the time. I also did not know anyone in Malaysia who would actually inform me about the best schools in Malaysia. So the only person i could trust was my agent. I had wanted to go visit Malaysia to see how the area looked like but my agent said i couldn't be in the country until I got my Visa Approval Letter (V.A.L). Apparently my cousin went to that school, and she told me it was a good school. And that was when i felt relaxed about the school.
Finally the day came for me to go to the school and start classes. Malaysia seemed to be a beautiful country with all the vegetation I saw on the way from the airport. I was filled with excitement of how my school would turn out to look like and i was ready to make new friends. The moment i arrived at my school, i was very disappointed. I even asked the driver if this was the right place. The area where my school was located in was a terrible place. Even though the road had tar in it and didn't have dust like the local areas back at home, the area seemed much worse than Africa from my perspective. When i was walking along the road, the area would smell like someone pooed or peed in the road. There was even a sewage located in front of Mc Donalds. A SEWAGE!!! Eww... Sometimes you would see dog poo on the road and other times you would see dead rats. I felt very uncomfortable. And me coming from a white area in South Africa, I felt like this was a downgrade rather than an upgrade. Sometimes when i would use UBER or GRAB CAR drivers to drop me off at school, they would also feel uncomfortable with the area because they live in better areas. So its not only me who thought the area was terrible. Malaysians too. That wasn't the only problem with the place there's more...
The people in the area acted worse than villagers back at home. They couldn't stop staring at me. There was a time a guy was driving in the road and he slowed down his car just to stare at me. I felt like them staring at me was them telling me to leave the country. I felt like i didn't belong. Plus its very rude to stare but these people were not ashamed. I tried smiling at a lady once but she looked back at me with disgust. I was hurt. Was it because i was black? There was even a time i was walking behind a chinese lady and she decided to speed up her pace. Later on I realized that they also do the same thing to white foreigners but instead of giving the look of disgust, it was a look of admiration. It was like they wanted to learn more from the white foreigner. Now me coming from south Africa, I was already used to white people and i knew that the white foreigner was a bit tired of the attention. I then asked one of my friend from Indonesia, she told me that Malaysians stare because i was different, I looked different. That kinda made sense because the area i was in they were mainly Chinese Malay. I honestly thought everyone looked the same to me the first time but the longer i stayed in Malaysia i could see the difference.
When it came to meeting my classmates, they were welcoming but not as welcoming as africans would be if you were a new student or international student in Africa. I was being nice to them and was trying to get along with them but no one really gave me a chance to really get to know who they are. Most of my classmates were soooo focused on assignments and school work which is something that you rarely find in Africa. Even the smart students relax and play a little. I even went as far as offering to go out for lunch and no one really wanted to. Then one day i saw all the Chinese girls from my class having lunch together. It was a post on Facebook. I was hurt that i wasn't even invited. It was hard. We were only two international students in the class (80 students in total). Which is ironic because i thought UCSI University was supposed to be an international school with many international students. Anyway, the other international student was a Nigerian guy. He easily managed to blend in with the rest of the class. I am guessing the guys were more open minded than girls when it comes to building relationships with foreigners. And he was one of the very few international students that managed to blend in with locals. I really wanted to be friends with locals but for me it was very hard as a girl. Whenever i was back in my country in South Africa some south africans preferred to be with themselves rather to mingle with foreigners (this was because of language barrier) and others were open to foreigners. I chose to be with foreigners and chose not to learn the local language because of that.
The most shocking thing was i wasn't the only one in the school who experienced racism and discrimination. My other friends who were international students went through the same thing too. In fact...the day i arrived in the school international students warned me about the racism and discrimination and they said that i should have gone to Limkokwing University instead. Limkokwing University had more international students than UCSI University hence there was less or no racism there. My international friends went through worse than me. One of my friends had a group project and was grouped with chinese. She always tried to communicate with them so that they can do group work but the chinese students would not respond and would do the work behind her back. When it came to presentation the chinese students told the teacher that the international student did nothing for the group. There was also a time a friend of mine worked very hard on her house model and her design was chosen to be the best, at the end of the day her design wasn't pinned up in the arts gallery. You see...its not that the international students are stupid or anything. The school is just racist. Even when it comes to looking for a house to move into, they would always say, "chinese preferred"
There was a time i worked hard on my project and it took me 5 full days to complete it. My group members were not cooperating so i decided to work on my own in the end. Everyone in the class decided to do last minute work the night before. When it finally came to presentation, the teacher said i did "TOO MUCH" that i should have done as little work as the rest of the class. I had wanted to stand out and i wanted to prove myself to the teacher but they said i did "too much". I ended up getting a C+ and chinese students of course got A's. I tried to defend my design for hope that maybe i could get B but the teachers never changed the mark. But when a chinese student defends their design they get all the praise. This was the moment i began to break down and not take this school seriously. I cant even call this racism....this is stupidity of the highest level! Its absurd! Funny thing is...the first day i arrived in the school, i laughed at the teachers. Their english was really bad and i couldn't understand them. But then when i saw how serious the rest of the class was i eventually began to take them seriously. They used to say things like, "CAN OR NOT LA?" meaning "CAN YOU MANAGE TO DO THE ASSIGNMENT?" Now if the teachers can't speak english, imagine the students. Most of the students didn't even try to mingle with international students or try to learn english which was more stupid in my opinion. While a few did which was good because i believed that they would go far in life. I say this because some of the students would say offensive things to me without knowing. Now imagine if i was a client...they would definitely lose a lot.
And then there was the childish criticism from the teachers. Things like "That chair looks like a kids slide...hahahaha" and "Your house plan looks like a toilet seat". THAT! In my opinion is not professional at all. Teachers are supposed to judge me based on the understanding of the design and judge me based on what was being taught throughout the whole semester. These comments came from Malay Malay and Chinese Malay teachers. And the funny thing is when you tell them that they are racist, they get offended and do nothing about it. Its funny because they are REALLY REALLY racist and can't do anything to change it. In South Africa, if you tell a white person that they are racist, they will immediately change. Problem solved. In fact, if this was Africa, the school would have died long time ago. Africans don't play with such foolishness.
Even the schools magazine doesn't have any African as a student representative. I was shocked. They put us as African beggars!!! There was even a time the head of architecture told me that my parents spend a lot of money on my school fees and i should work hard so that i can help my people back in Africa. Little did she know that Malaysia is a third world country so they are in the same standard as us(africa)...lol. Ive even seen some places in Malaysia being in a worse state than Uganda(a country in east africa). But South Africa is NOT EVEN a third world country. Even the owner of the school is racist himself. There is no hope in changing the schools mindset. There was a time the owner of the school was playing basket ball at night. And the African guys who usually play football every Friday night wanted to play. They asked the owner of the school for permission and he just gave them a bad eye and continued playing. Basically he demanded for respect which is very disgusting. Anyway, the boys just stood there waiting for the owner to finish playing basket ball. They waited for an hour then he eventually left. I personally find it disgusting for him to demand for respect like that. It makes it seem like you didn't work hard to become rich. More like he stole the money from people in the school. Even his own children aren't students in UCSI University. They are all studying in Canada. Which means he knows the school is shit.
There was a time i was in an airplane in South Africa and i was seated next to a chinese guy. He was fascinated with my skin color and even touched my hand like i was an animal. I mean...IN AFRICA! They still stare and touch in AFRICA! Where there are millions of black people?! How stupid is this guy?! Anyway, so the air host lady comes to ask for our order. And the chinese guy had a local chinese english accent that the lady couldn't understand she immediately ignored him and attended to me. But me...being a nice person, i translated what the chinese guy was asking for the lady to understand. You see..you see why i was laughing at my teachers' english? There are some Africans who will never take someone serious even though they are smart as long as they don't know english well. Its not only Africans, even americans, English people, Australians etc. Heck! Americans treat Chinese foreigners worse than they (chinese) would treat Africans. I feel for Nigerians the most in malaysia. They go through a lot. I dont know why Malaysians are against Nigerians but hey... I think i saw it in the media so there is a bad influence. But Malaysians who have made Nigerian friends never regret it. And they tend to have a lot of respect for Africans too.
When i would sit in the school bus, the only people that would actually sit next to me are Indian Malay or an international student. It would be rare for a chinese Malay to sit next to me. I felt like i lost humanity because i had to define people by their race. In Africa everyone greets everyone, there is peace. In Cheras (UCSI University location), you aren't allowed to greet anyone especially chinese. I had to always check if the person was non chinese in order to finally greet them. It was very painful because i felt like i lost my humanity. I felt like the school was training me to be racist even though i wasn't. It reached a point where i had to run away from the school back to my home country to gain the humanity i lost. Being in UCSI University, has really taught me what racism feels like and has made me felt like i was living in the real apartheid area. Before i used to think there was racism in South Africa but now i can proudly say there is none. The country has healed and has moved forward from racism.
Another turn off about UCSI University is that these people will literally drain your money for nothing. In the list of tuition fees, they will state that you pay for resources, library, entertainment...etc. And yet at the end of the day you never use the library, you have to buy books, the school doesn't provide the resources, you pay for your own, and for entertainment you still have to pay for the school events that take place. The students are forced to go to school events even when they suck. There was even a time the school banned me from dancing because "twerking" is inappropriate yet chinese girls do it all the time and they just don't know how to dance....im sorry. There is no talent in this school. You even ask where are the music students because of how poorly students perform in the school events. That alone just proves that you really don't learn anything in UCSI University. This is LITERALLY the WORST school to study english! Honestly, don't come here for the english programs coz the teachers themselves don't know how to construct a proper sentence. Id advise you to watch american movies or even go to an african school if you are trying to save some cash. I know not all of us can afford first world countries but at least with Africa theres hope.
And then theres the food, I honestly didn't like Malaysian food. Even most of my international friends didn't like it too. The first time i tasted Malaysian food, i literally asked for salt because i could not taste anything. The food was spicy but had no salt. For south africans, many people like to put a lot of salt in the food to give it taste. For west africans, they love to put spices in their food but shockingly i loved Nigerian food. It was spicy and had taste. With Malaysian food, i would only get satisfied because of the taste not that i was really satisfied. When i am really satisfied of food, my belly gets bigger. I ate Malaysian food for 2 full years (because i was in hostel) and i lost a lot of weight. Some people would ask me if i was sick, or would ask what happened to my hips. My boobs and hips were gone! Almost like i was turning into an asian person...lol. Every African knows its embarrassing to not have curves with african blood in them. There is nothing wrong with the food in Malaysia. Its just the spice that messes things up. When i finally decided to bring my own spices from home, i was instantly back in shape. So if you are a foreigner and you plan to study in Malaysia bring your own spices from home then you will be fine. Malaysian food would be nice to taste for tourists but to eat every single day of your life is exhausting. In Cheras, the food in the restaurants aren't very good but in other areas of Malaysia there are good places to eat good food.
So basically, my experience in UCSI University was shit! PLEASE DO NOT COME if you are a foreigner. You will waste your money for nothing even if you are on scholarship, you eventually pay for everything. The school won't provide money for the resources. They don't only despise Africans but also Arabs, Russians and so on. The school is more of a scam than an actual place of learning. The reason why it is highly ranked is because it is easy for locals to get scholarship and the schools requirements are lower than others. The location of the area isn't as pleasant as they put it out to be on youtube. Heck! They even disabled the comments section and hid the likes section on Youtube because they know students will warn new comers not to come to the school. The racism and stupidity is clearly too much. I even couldn't complete my studies from the university because i felt the certificate was worthless. I never learnt anything from the teachers. Everything i learnt was from my own research on the internet. I also left because i did not want to hate innocent chinese people in my life that i would meet in future. Because if i did that would make me racist and thats not how i was brought up. With my experience in UCSI University, it doesn't mean that all malaysians are racist. Cheras is just known to be on of the most racist area in Malaysia simply because Chinese Malay are the majority from what I've heard. Even the chinese students from china complain about the chinese malay! Its that intense...so please don't come to UCSI University. Im saving you a lot.
Otherwise Malaysians are nice people in general. Basically, like any other country, there will be areas where racism is high due to lack of proper education. I'm not going to lie, there are areas in South Africa where racism is slightly high. So don't be surprised if you experience similar in another country or a first world country. In conclusion, I would also like to say that Malaysia is a beautiful country. Lets say 70% of the country is beautiful which is something i admire. Malaysia is a country I could even stay in. Im just telling you that UCSI University will make you hate Malaysia for no reason. Ever since I've been in Malaysia, without being in UCSI University, I have fallen in love with Malaysia so much. That was when i realized that there was a problem with the school not the country. Malaysian food is also good depending on the location. I just wrote this blog because when i was looking for valid information about UCSI University, it wasn't available for me. I feel it would be nice for someone out there to know before they waste their money. If you plan on studying in Malaysia the schools i recommend are Limkokwing University, Asian Pacific University (A.P.U) and Nottingham University. The Universities that you should try to avoid are Curtin University, Sunway University and UCSI University.
Finally the day came for me to go to the school and start classes. Malaysia seemed to be a beautiful country with all the vegetation I saw on the way from the airport. I was filled with excitement of how my school would turn out to look like and i was ready to make new friends. The moment i arrived at my school, i was very disappointed. I even asked the driver if this was the right place. The area where my school was located in was a terrible place. Even though the road had tar in it and didn't have dust like the local areas back at home, the area seemed much worse than Africa from my perspective. When i was walking along the road, the area would smell like someone pooed or peed in the road. There was even a sewage located in front of Mc Donalds. A SEWAGE!!! Eww... Sometimes you would see dog poo on the road and other times you would see dead rats. I felt very uncomfortable. And me coming from a white area in South Africa, I felt like this was a downgrade rather than an upgrade. Sometimes when i would use UBER or GRAB CAR drivers to drop me off at school, they would also feel uncomfortable with the area because they live in better areas. So its not only me who thought the area was terrible. Malaysians too. That wasn't the only problem with the place there's more...
The people in the area acted worse than villagers back at home. They couldn't stop staring at me. There was a time a guy was driving in the road and he slowed down his car just to stare at me. I felt like them staring at me was them telling me to leave the country. I felt like i didn't belong. Plus its very rude to stare but these people were not ashamed. I tried smiling at a lady once but she looked back at me with disgust. I was hurt. Was it because i was black? There was even a time i was walking behind a chinese lady and she decided to speed up her pace. Later on I realized that they also do the same thing to white foreigners but instead of giving the look of disgust, it was a look of admiration. It was like they wanted to learn more from the white foreigner. Now me coming from south Africa, I was already used to white people and i knew that the white foreigner was a bit tired of the attention. I then asked one of my friend from Indonesia, she told me that Malaysians stare because i was different, I looked different. That kinda made sense because the area i was in they were mainly Chinese Malay. I honestly thought everyone looked the same to me the first time but the longer i stayed in Malaysia i could see the difference.
When it came to meeting my classmates, they were welcoming but not as welcoming as africans would be if you were a new student or international student in Africa. I was being nice to them and was trying to get along with them but no one really gave me a chance to really get to know who they are. Most of my classmates were soooo focused on assignments and school work which is something that you rarely find in Africa. Even the smart students relax and play a little. I even went as far as offering to go out for lunch and no one really wanted to. Then one day i saw all the Chinese girls from my class having lunch together. It was a post on Facebook. I was hurt that i wasn't even invited. It was hard. We were only two international students in the class (80 students in total). Which is ironic because i thought UCSI University was supposed to be an international school with many international students. Anyway, the other international student was a Nigerian guy. He easily managed to blend in with the rest of the class. I am guessing the guys were more open minded than girls when it comes to building relationships with foreigners. And he was one of the very few international students that managed to blend in with locals. I really wanted to be friends with locals but for me it was very hard as a girl. Whenever i was back in my country in South Africa some south africans preferred to be with themselves rather to mingle with foreigners (this was because of language barrier) and others were open to foreigners. I chose to be with foreigners and chose not to learn the local language because of that.


And then there was the childish criticism from the teachers. Things like "That chair looks like a kids slide...hahahaha" and "Your house plan looks like a toilet seat". THAT! In my opinion is not professional at all. Teachers are supposed to judge me based on the understanding of the design and judge me based on what was being taught throughout the whole semester. These comments came from Malay Malay and Chinese Malay teachers. And the funny thing is when you tell them that they are racist, they get offended and do nothing about it. Its funny because they are REALLY REALLY racist and can't do anything to change it. In South Africa, if you tell a white person that they are racist, they will immediately change. Problem solved. In fact, if this was Africa, the school would have died long time ago. Africans don't play with such foolishness.

There was a time i was in an airplane in South Africa and i was seated next to a chinese guy. He was fascinated with my skin color and even touched my hand like i was an animal. I mean...IN AFRICA! They still stare and touch in AFRICA! Where there are millions of black people?! How stupid is this guy?! Anyway, so the air host lady comes to ask for our order. And the chinese guy had a local chinese english accent that the lady couldn't understand she immediately ignored him and attended to me. But me...being a nice person, i translated what the chinese guy was asking for the lady to understand. You see..you see why i was laughing at my teachers' english? There are some Africans who will never take someone serious even though they are smart as long as they don't know english well. Its not only Africans, even americans, English people, Australians etc. Heck! Americans treat Chinese foreigners worse than they (chinese) would treat Africans. I feel for Nigerians the most in malaysia. They go through a lot. I dont know why Malaysians are against Nigerians but hey... I think i saw it in the media so there is a bad influence. But Malaysians who have made Nigerian friends never regret it. And they tend to have a lot of respect for Africans too.
Another turn off about UCSI University is that these people will literally drain your money for nothing. In the list of tuition fees, they will state that you pay for resources, library, entertainment...etc. And yet at the end of the day you never use the library, you have to buy books, the school doesn't provide the resources, you pay for your own, and for entertainment you still have to pay for the school events that take place. The students are forced to go to school events even when they suck. There was even a time the school banned me from dancing because "twerking" is inappropriate yet chinese girls do it all the time and they just don't know how to dance....im sorry. There is no talent in this school. You even ask where are the music students because of how poorly students perform in the school events. That alone just proves that you really don't learn anything in UCSI University. This is LITERALLY the WORST school to study english! Honestly, don't come here for the english programs coz the teachers themselves don't know how to construct a proper sentence. Id advise you to watch american movies or even go to an african school if you are trying to save some cash. I know not all of us can afford first world countries but at least with Africa theres hope.
And then theres the food, I honestly didn't like Malaysian food. Even most of my international friends didn't like it too. The first time i tasted Malaysian food, i literally asked for salt because i could not taste anything. The food was spicy but had no salt. For south africans, many people like to put a lot of salt in the food to give it taste. For west africans, they love to put spices in their food but shockingly i loved Nigerian food. It was spicy and had taste. With Malaysian food, i would only get satisfied because of the taste not that i was really satisfied. When i am really satisfied of food, my belly gets bigger. I ate Malaysian food for 2 full years (because i was in hostel) and i lost a lot of weight. Some people would ask me if i was sick, or would ask what happened to my hips. My boobs and hips were gone! Almost like i was turning into an asian person...lol. Every African knows its embarrassing to not have curves with african blood in them. There is nothing wrong with the food in Malaysia. Its just the spice that messes things up. When i finally decided to bring my own spices from home, i was instantly back in shape. So if you are a foreigner and you plan to study in Malaysia bring your own spices from home then you will be fine. Malaysian food would be nice to taste for tourists but to eat every single day of your life is exhausting. In Cheras, the food in the restaurants aren't very good but in other areas of Malaysia there are good places to eat good food.
So basically, my experience in UCSI University was shit! PLEASE DO NOT COME if you are a foreigner. You will waste your money for nothing even if you are on scholarship, you eventually pay for everything. The school won't provide money for the resources. They don't only despise Africans but also Arabs, Russians and so on. The school is more of a scam than an actual place of learning. The reason why it is highly ranked is because it is easy for locals to get scholarship and the schools requirements are lower than others. The location of the area isn't as pleasant as they put it out to be on youtube. Heck! They even disabled the comments section and hid the likes section on Youtube because they know students will warn new comers not to come to the school. The racism and stupidity is clearly too much. I even couldn't complete my studies from the university because i felt the certificate was worthless. I never learnt anything from the teachers. Everything i learnt was from my own research on the internet. I also left because i did not want to hate innocent chinese people in my life that i would meet in future. Because if i did that would make me racist and thats not how i was brought up. With my experience in UCSI University, it doesn't mean that all malaysians are racist. Cheras is just known to be on of the most racist area in Malaysia simply because Chinese Malay are the majority from what I've heard. Even the chinese students from china complain about the chinese malay! Its that intense...so please don't come to UCSI University. Im saving you a lot.
Otherwise Malaysians are nice people in general. Basically, like any other country, there will be areas where racism is high due to lack of proper education. I'm not going to lie, there are areas in South Africa where racism is slightly high. So don't be surprised if you experience similar in another country or a first world country. In conclusion, I would also like to say that Malaysia is a beautiful country. Lets say 70% of the country is beautiful which is something i admire. Malaysia is a country I could even stay in. Im just telling you that UCSI University will make you hate Malaysia for no reason. Ever since I've been in Malaysia, without being in UCSI University, I have fallen in love with Malaysia so much. That was when i realized that there was a problem with the school not the country. Malaysian food is also good depending on the location. I just wrote this blog because when i was looking for valid information about UCSI University, it wasn't available for me. I feel it would be nice for someone out there to know before they waste their money. If you plan on studying in Malaysia the schools i recommend are Limkokwing University, Asian Pacific University (A.P.U) and Nottingham University. The Universities that you should try to avoid are Curtin University, Sunway University and UCSI University.
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