*sigh*
So I finally finished a week of action packed school work! For the first time in over 7 months, I am stressed with school work yet again! This gets me thinking two things - first, I am out of academic shape, but more importantly, Hong Kong education is different from American education in a few distinct, but very important ways. These differences are affecting the way I learn here.
Now before I start comparing these two systems, I by no mean to disrespect or make superior either of these systems. Education is very different to each person and each individuals learns concepts in very different manners.
With that out of the way, let's start.
The first thing I noticed when talking about college studies in Hong Kong was how differently engineering was received in Hong Kong. While engineering is respected in Hong Kong like other cultures, engineering as a career is sidelined by financial and business in the financial center of the world. From my experience, engineering appears to be imported from around the world, rather than home grown.
As a result of this, the "from the field' engineering professor doesn't really appear as prevalent in Hong Kong universities as compared to my experiences at Drexel. This is what I consider the defining difference between my experiences in Hong Kong.
The first major difference to come to light was the direction of teaching in the classroom. The classes are taught straight from the books. This is not what you would call bad, but this is problematic for me as I am better acquainted with learning conceptually, learning the theory as a product of my common sense. This has made studying in Hong Kong harder than I originally expected, even with what is the minimum load here at HKUST.
The next difference come from the student culture here in Hong Kong. Studying is quite memorization based. By the method and rate by which the material is taught, memorization is basically the only effective method to gain the competency of the material required to perform in class. While I was prepared for this in idea, I was not prepared for this at all in practice. It ends up that through experiencing the classroom in Hong Kong, I have found out that I am a conceptual and kinematic learner to a higher degree than I originally expected.
All in all, the first part of my time in Hong Kong has shown me a lot more about myself as a student and individual than I could ever expected. I have better qualified my learning type, and also how I want to lead my life. I would say that my time in Hong Kong is already worth more than its time in money, I can't wait to see how much more I learn of myself and Hong Kong in the three months left!
Well, it is late! I better head off to bed. By the way, the average bedtime for a Hong Konger appears to be well past midnight!