Asian Institute of Technology (AIT)

The AIT is a good place to study because there is not much else to do!

Compared to the Thai standard, the on campus accomodation has been alright. Of course, they are not comparable at all to European standards. The standard accomodation is a small room with shared toilet and shower. But there is also the possibility to get an appartment in the student village with two other students, where rooms are bigger. Moreover, there is kind of a living-room and a gas stove for cooking. As to cleanliness, the charwomen come twice a week. Nevertheless, big cockroaches, spiders and ants are a common thing. Anyway, after a while you get used to it. The water is always cold, but you can get along with it for some time. Finally, there is no air-condition, just fans and it takes some time to get used to the high humidity. As there are no window grates, it can be quite noisy from time to time. All in all, the accomodation was alright after getting used to different standards.

AIT is a good place to study, but a boring place to live! It's quite far from downtown BKK. Staying at AIT is like staying in a park; beautiful environment but gets pretty boring...

- Some course require more work than others: ask former student beore chosing. - The travel agencies on Kao san are the cheapest you can find but the busses are sometimes very rusty and smelly. - Best area for shopping is chattuchak market on the week-end. - Do not hesitate to ask other foreigners and locals if you need help or advice.

OK, but avoid the student village accomodation near the garbage dump, which is in middle of the campus (!!) Also, sometimes there is a lot of noise from other students, especially in the standards dorms. And the sports facilities are just outside some of the dorms so there is a lot of noise from people playing badminton, tennis etc. The standard dorm rooms are quite small also. I found accomodation at AIT to be so so. Again, the e,j, and k dorms are by far the best.

The international students could choose a Thai language course where we acquired an everyday knowledge. This was actually pretty helpful in certain situations, as lots of Thais just speak a little English. And with our knowledge at the end, we managed to get along pretty well. That's especially important at the market, as bargaining is much easier in the local language. At university, everyone speaks a rather good English, although some dialects are hard to understand. I had quite a hard time to understand the Indian people. But after a while you'll get used to it.