Student Report – HKUST, Fall 2013
Hong Kong University of Science and Technology
Exchange semester: Fall 2013
I
Introduction
Picking Asia and Hong Kong for an exchange destination has been something non of us has
regretted one single moment. When we applied for the exchange, we wanted to pick a place
where not everybody else usually go. Asia can be described as nothing but fantastic, and it is
also a very important country considering their position as the “new economic capital” of the
world.
Studying in Hong Kong has been quite different from what we are used to back in Norway.
The biggest change has maybe been the academic structure, where your final exam is not
counting 100%, but instead you are also being evaluated through the whole semester with
everything from attendance, participation, midterms to several assignments.
By selecting Hong Kong you also have unique possibilities to experience a totally different
culture from what you are used to back in Norway. Especially the food culture, where the
meal get’s more social because you all order small dishes and share everything. To
summarize, we have really enjoyed this semester abroad.
This report aims to give you some useful information about Hong Kong and HKUST, and
hopefully you will considere to go here yourself for you exchange semester. This is your
chance, grab it!
II
General information about the school
HKUST has over 12,000 students and is ranked first in Asia according to the QS Asian
University Rankings. The University is located in Clear Water Bay, around fifty minutes
Student Report – HKUST, Fall 2013
outside of the city center by public transport. It is positioned on a hillside overlooking the sea,
providing an amazing back drop. The campus is comprehensive, and you will find everything
you need; restaurants/canteens, training facilities, swimming pool, bar, supermarket etc. The
School has three main departments; science, technology and business. The business school is
regarded as the best in Asia Pacific. The study structure is quite different from BI. You will be
evaluated on several different criteria; presentations, assignments, participations, mid-term
exams and final exams.
In the fall 2013 we were about 400 exchange students from all over the world. There are a lot
of Europeans here, espically from France, Germany and Scandinavia.
I. PRACTICAL INFORMATION
Before leaving Norway
Before going to Hong Kong, you will receive two “information packages”. The first package
was received in mid May, and included several paper forms you had to fill in(included the
VISA application). It is important to mention that you have to get a financial statement from
your own bank, and send this copy with your first information package-papers. This financial
statement is required, because HKUST need an insurance that you can pay for your exchange
semester. The easiest way to get this is just to call your bank, they are used to other students
going abroad calling them and asking about the same. You will then receive the statement in
your e-mail.
The first information package also include papers applying for housing at campus. This
semester we have lived in Hall IX. This is the newest and best dorms, considering that you
only need to share bathroom and toilet with another double room(total 4 other people). In the
application form you can choose between Hall I to Hall IX, and we recommend you to apply
for Hall VII, VIII & Hall IX. Even though you have to pay a little bit more for this
accomodation, we believe this was worth it. In the application form you can choose if you
want to stay with a local student, and exchange student or a student you know from BI. We
got a list from BI with all the exchange students going to HKUST, and we contacted each
other on Facebook – before we decided to apply together. Our recommendation is either
choose a BI-student or an exchange student. That is because the locals here are a bit different
from our culture, considering that they rarely go out and rarely sleep. They are nice people, of
course, but from our experience it is nice to stay with someone who has some culture
similarities.
The second information package was delivered in mid July. You will also receive your VISA
around the same time, separately. In the second information package you will receive a lot of
useful information about the school and student services.
Applying for a visa (if applicable)
HKUST has done it really easy for you, applying for the student VISA. You will receive all
the papers in the first information package. The fee for the Visa is around 500 HKD(around
400 NOK) and also covers an insurance at HKUST(this is not an insurance when you travel
outside the campus, though). Leave a passport-photo for your VISA application.
The VISA was received around mid July.
Student Report – HKUST, Fall 2013
Travel
There are several possibilities regarding how you want to book you flight tickets to Hong
Kong. You should definitively check out www.finn.no, if you want to save some money.
When we booked our tickets we picked British Airways(BA). We had also visited finn.no, but
we didn’t want too many transfer flights. BA was very convenient, and we ordered the tickets
from their own website. British Airways has only one transfer flight, first Oslo-London, then
London-Hong Kong. By choosing BA you can bring two check-in luggage(23 kg each),
something we found very nice since we would probably bring some stuff home from our
exchange semester in Hong Kong. We paid around 9000 NOK for a roundtrip, but you can
definitively get it cheaper too. We decided to upgrade our tickets to economic+ and choose
our seats in advance London-Hong Kong, to start our exchange journey a little bit better.
Other airlines that has good prices and good standard we could recommend is Cathay Pacific
and Finnair.
You should book your tickets as early as possible, to get the best price. Be aware that the
semester last until 21. Dec, when you book your return flight back to Norway. We have
experienced that many exchange students travelling after their last exam, and if you also want
to do this you only buy yourself a one-way ticket. But be aware that it is often more cheaper
to book roundtrip flights, instead of just one-way ticket.
Housing
The University provides on-campus housing for all exchange-in students, and you can apply
for one of the undergraduate halls that consists of 9 different halls. The rooms on campus are
twin bedroom only for the exchange students, where you can choose to live with another
exchange student or a local student. The rooms are pretty small, but you have a refrigerator
and your own study desk in the room. In some of the halls you have to share bathrooms with
everyone in the floor you live in, except for in hall I-IX where two rooms share one bathroom.
Air-condition is necessary particularly during the summer, and can be purchased with your
student-ID card. Another option is that you can choose to find a place on your own if you
don’t want to live on campus. Since the exchange is only for one semester is not recommend
to seek for your on placement. The rental price in Hong Kong is quite high and also pretty
difficult to find a good place for such a short term. The on-campus housing is way cheaper
than what you can find on your own, with a housing-tuition of about 5330 – 7350 HKD (4264
– 5880 NOK) approximately for the entire semester.
Cost
In general the books here are much cheaper than in Norway, at least half the price of what you
are used to buy for in Akademika or Norli. The food on campus is quite cheap compared to
what we are used to in BI. You can have meal here for 25-40 HKD approximately with soft
drinks. Off campus you can find a broad variety of food for all kinds of prices depends on
your preference.
Culture and language
Student Report – HKUST, Fall 2013
The faculty staffs here are pretty prestiges and all professor are fluent in English, at least in
the business department, there are however occasions where administrative staff are
struggling with English.
The university also offers language courses in Mandarin, a great experience but very
demanding. Since local students are fairly kept to themselves, a great way to get to know
them more is to choose to share room with them in the Hall, however be aware that their
hours are very different and they hardly sleep at all.
Course registration
In the second information package you will get a list over all courses you can apply for during
the exchange. You will get username and password that you will be using to log into the
system to apply for courses. During the first 2 weeks there are what they add/drop period, so
you have the opportunity to apply for courses to fill your credit or swap to other courses.
The International Office
There is an International Office on campus which is very helpful.
Promoting BI and Norway
There was an exchange fair in the beginning of October. BI sent us all the necessary
materials. The locals tend to be shy, so hardly anyone stopped by the booth.
Academic calendar
The fall semester officially started 2nd of September. We arrived in Hong Kong 27th of
August, to experience some of Hong Kong before the semester start. The first weekend is also
mandatory to show up, with a welcome meeting for all exchange students + an optional buddy
program. We both got some nice buddies who showed us around in the city and who gave us a
lot of useful information.
When you start your semester the 2nd of September it is followed by a “add/drop period” for 2
weeks. This is 2 weeks where you can switch between the courses you want to take abroad.
Be aware that some courses are very popular and will quickly have waiting lists. Our
recommendation is to try picking out most of your favourite courses in advance, because we
have experienced kind of long waiting lists for some of the courses we wanted to apply for.
This is especially important, regarding the mandatory courses you need to take abroad. At the
same time, be aware that you have to to pick enough courses to reach the requirement of 15
credits. 15 credits here counts as 30 ECTS credits home at BI(1 credit = 2 ECTS credits). We
have taken 4 to 5 courses to cover the 15 credits requirement. The number depends on the
credit rating for the different courses.
You will receive a course application-email from HKUST before your semester start. We
experienced to get this mail a bit too late, in the middle of August – so check your email
account oftem. The deadline for picking courses in advance was almost just one week after
we received the course application-email.
Student Report – HKUST, Fall 2013
During the semester you have midterms at HKUST. Many courses are also non-accumulative.
That means your midterm cover the first half of the required reading, and the final exam the
remaining part. The semester ended the 21st of December. The lectures last until the last week
of November. After this, there is one study-break week, before your final exams arrive. At the
same time, we have experienced to finish some of our courses already the week before
studybreak. The nice thing about this is that we had less work to do in December.
2
SOCIAL ACTIVITIES
You will be offered to sign up for an exchange buddy whom will show you around in Hong
Kong and attend orientation activities with. There are also several hall activities during the
semester. Which could be a great way to socialize and to get to know the local students. There
are also a restaurant/bar on campus call Uni-bar which is an excellent place to meet and
socialize with other exchange students in the beginning. The exchange students on campus
quickly bonded and we arranged travels together.
At the beginning of the semester there are lot student society offer you can sign up for, like
movie or dancing society all kinds of sports and interests. Student organizations are available
for membership. There is a fair each semester where all organizations present themselves and
enroll new members.
Hong Kong is a very diverse city and it has basically everything, among several places you
should visit while you stay in Hong Kong, we will strongly recommend; Lang Kwai Fong –
LKF is a street on Hong Kong Island at the center of all of the nightclubs and bars. There are
also lots of different types of bars and nightclubs catering for all different tastes.
Beside that there are also lot of opportunities for hiking, nice beaches and cliff jumping it is
very amazing and refreshing since it so hot during the summer. In Sai Kung you can also go
for kayaking where you can rent kayak for very cheap.
3
ACADEMICS
The teaching methods of the school were a bit different from BI. They use more classroom
teaching in small scale, not auditorium with hundreds of people. You get closer to the
professors, have more discussions and group work. Many of the courses use cases, and many
do not rely on books. For the exams we could usually just rely on the slides provided by the
professors, and that is usually enough to pass the exams, and get a decent/good grade. Some
courses also use books, kind of the same as the English literature we use at BI.
The workload depends on the course. Some are heavy, where there is a lot to do, and you also
have the “easy” courses with almost nothing to do. Also, the examination depends on the
courses. In some courses you do projects, and final presentation. Other does both, with either
written exams or quizzes. For the written exams and mid-term there are a lot of “multiple
choice”, and some essay questions. Class attendance and participation is important, and count
on the final grade in almost every course.
The library is rather huge, with learning commons, group rooms and study areas over four
floors. During the study week it is filled up, but through the semester there is always a place
to sit. They have computer barns through campus, where you can work, print etc. The
technical standard is pleasing, what we are used to from Norway.
Here are the courses we attended:
Student Report – HKUST, Fall 2013
Course code & name
Exam form
MARK3470
Service Marketing
2
Quizzes A good marketing
Project and presentation
course
MGMT3140
Negotiation
Mid-term and Final
Very popular
ISOM3180
Telecommunication
Networking Management
Mid-term and Final
“easy”, though a
bit technical
Project and presentation
Strategic,
workload
and
MGMT4250
Management Consulting
Comments
LANG1120
Oral tests, listening tests, Useful to
Putonghua
for
Non-Chinese essay, and character some
Language Background Students
reading
Chinese
FINA1303
Introduction to Financial Markets
MC-exam
MGMT1120
Developing the Leader in You
MC-exam
FINA3204
Derivative Securities
MARK1220
Marketing and Society
FINA 3104
Investment analysis & portfolio
management
ECON 3014
Managerial microeconomic
MC-exam
MGMT 4220
Entrepreneurship
business studies
and
No final exam
Mid-term and Final
Mid-term and Final
high
learn
basic
Covers a lot of
topics in Finance,
but
most
in
general
Practical,
theoretical
and
interesting
High
workload
and very hard
Interesting
and
easy
Very popular and
interesting
Interesting,
but
pretty demanding
Groupwork,
business very popular and
small plan, presentation, final interesting course,
assessment
but require also lot
of work
MGMT4250 – Management Consulting
This is a strategic course where you work with an actual client, working as consultants for a
company. What you do depends on the company, it could either be to write a business plan,
strategy to enter a new market, expansion strategy etc. Although the workload of this course is
Student Report – HKUST, Fall 2013
quite high, it is still a useful course, and also we need to do a strategic course.
The final grade is based on the final pack.
MARK3470 – Service Marketing
This is an interesting marketing course, teaching about services, gaining an understanding of
key marketing concepts that are relevant in the context of service industries, and development
of decision-making skills through the concepts learned in the course. We also do a project, a
service audit where we analyze a company, and how well they perform regarding the service.
As
a
marketing
student,
this
course
is
recommended.
The final grade is based on the two quizzes, the project and participation.
LANG1120 - Putonghua for Non-Chinese Language Background Students
This is a course where you learn basic mandarin Chinese. If you have the interest of learning a
new language, this is the course to take. You learn things like greetings, self-introduction,
personal information, time/date, prices, likes/dislikes etc. you also learn to read some basic
Chinese
characters.
The grade is based on the score from the different tests. You have orals, where you speak
some Chinese. You have listening tests and a final test where you need to be able to read
some characters. There is also an essay you need to write in English, on how you perceive the
Chinese culture.
MGMT 3140 – Negotiations
This is a very popular course among the exchange students. You develop and improve your
negotiation skills. You have class twice a week, where there is a new negotiation each week,
and the other class is theory. You learn through different case-roles, from salary negotiation to
solving
disputes.
It
is
a
fun,
and
useful
course.
Your final grade is based on the mid-term, final, and also participation and results from the
negotiations.
ISOM3180 – Telecommunication and Networking Management
This is an “informal” computer course, learning the basics of “how the internet works”. We
learn about the different devices through the internet setup and we learned how the
information moves through the web. If you have some interest of this, it is recommended. We
also have lab tutorials, where we learn how to build up networks etc. With this course, you
might
not
need
to
call
IT-support
next
time
something
happens.
There is not taken attendance for this course, final grade is just based on mid-term and final.
But it is recommended to attend the classes of course.
FINA1303 – Introduction to Financial Markets
This course a introduction to the main topics of finance. No need to buy textbook – just use
powerpoint slides. The teacher picks out people in class so that we can gain our participationpoints, but the question are not too hard to answer though. You have 2 group projects +
midterm and exam. The midterm and exam are non-accumulative.
MGMT1120 – Developing the Leader in You
This course are similar to “Personalledelse” at BI. The teacher is very enthusiastic, and you
learn about how you can become the “perfect” leader in the future. The course is both
theroretical and practical with classroom exercises. The workload in the course is a lot, but
not too hard though. You have 7 self-assesment, midterm, final exam + 2 portfolios to deliver.
Student Report – HKUST, Fall 2013
FINA3204 – Derivative Securities
This is one of the heaviest finance-courses at HKUST. Had to apply this course because
“Finansiell Styring” is mandatory course for Business Administration-students abroad. The
course that we were supposed to pick was FINA2303 – Financial Management, but ths course
was unfortunately not offered in the Fall 2013-semester. The course goes deeply into the
theories about futures, forward, options and swaps. The course has 2 group projects, midterm
and final. We would recommend you to stay away from the course if you can pick another
course that covers the mandatory requirement from BI, or if you are not deadly interested in
finance.
MARK1220 – Marketing and Society
This is a very interesting course about how marketing influence society. The professor is
really good and enthusiastic, and he loves exchange students. The course is quite easy and no
heavy reading. You have 3 tests(best 2 out of 3 tests count on your grade) and 2 group
presentations(case and own chosen project).
FINA3104 – Investment analysis and portfolio management
As a finance course, the objective is to provide in-depth knowledge about the investment
environment. The classical finance theory teaches you where and how best allocate the money
given the investor’s risk profile and the investment objective. It provides a framework on how
to analyse each security; from equity, to fixed income to derivatives in isolation as well as in a
portfolio context. Its models underpin many portfolios construction in today’s world, etc. It is
fair to say that, although most of the models of finance theory have come under attack, they
are still the best tools that market posses so far. And, as it is always the case, one should know
the tools of the other market participants before making its own informed decision.
ECON3014 - Managerial Microeconomics
This course begins with a critical review of the standard models studied in introductory
macroeconomics courses, highlighting their limitations and applicability. In the process, we
emphasize the role of expectations and the intertemporal decisions faced by governments,
consumers and firms. Building on this foundation, we analyze a host of international
macroeconomic and financial issues, including monetary and fiscal policies, exchange rate
determination, financial crises, currency risks and their implications for corporate decisionmaking. It is a very interesting course, but also quite demanding. You have to expect to spend
some time to study for this course in order to achieve a good grade.
MGMT4220 – Entrepreuship and small business studies
Facing problems by small firms and basic skills neeed for developing new business, including
entrepreurial strategies, legal and financial considerations and effective new venture
management. It is very nice course and the professor is pretty good, gives you different aspect
of starting a business.the are also several guest speakers during the semester, who will talk
about their start up venture.