Exchange Report City University Hong Kong 423700
Preparing for Exchange Preparing for exchange was easy. I received the first email from CityU in early March and was asked to give information in their online portal. Documents needed included copies of passport, passport pictures, transcripts of records from Aalto as well as proof of sufficient funds. The proof of funds had to an official one and ordered from my bank in Finland. Moreover, you had to fill in a visa application and send that application via post to CityU. If you want accommodation at campus (cheapest option) you should fill out the application for that as soon as possible too. I received confirmation for admission later that spring and the visa in early summer. Some of my friends however had problems with their visa not arriving on time. That was easily solved though, the visa was sent back to the student office in Hong Kong and the students had to go to Macao to be able to enforce it. I bought flights right after receiving the confirmation from CityU. I bought a return ticket to Hong Kong but several of my friends bought only one waytickets and return tickets later as they were not sure when to return. I arrived in Hong Kong two days before the orientation started to get over jetlag and meet other exchange students. Travelling to Hong Kong and finding the hotel and later the university was very easy, taxis are very cheap in HK and also using the bus is easy. Reception at the university was very warm and full of activities. During the first week we had a lot of official activities that we not mandatory but useful, especially the tour around campus since at first it was very difficult to find the correct buildings and classrooms. During evenings exchange students met up to hang out and get to know each other at campus or restaurants downtown.
Courses Exchange Studies My studies started 28.8 with orientation activities starting the week before on the 19 th. CityU has a very nice location close to a MTR station and only 30min MTR ride from the centre. Taxis also know the place relatively well and during daytime taxi cost only approximately 120 HKD from the city centre. Before orientation I got settled to my dorm room and there was a trip to IKEA for buying all the necessities since there is no point taking sheets, pillows or plates etc from home. Orientation was mandatory for all exchange students and included a lot of general knowledge about studying and the university. Examination period was from 1.12-17.12 with a study break of two weeks before that. CityU offers a very wide range of courses for exchange students to choose from. The amount of credits you need differs between home universities, Aalto required me to complete 5 courses, each 3crd in CityU. I had to choose 10 courses during my enrolling in the spring, from which I was given 6 courses that matched time wise. There is an add/drop period of two weeks in CityU during which you can change every course I you like but I would strongly suggest on selecting carefully the 10 courses you wish to do as there is a limited amount of add/drop places for each course. However, changing the courses in Hong Kong is not that difficult, it is only time and energy consuming. I studied in the business exchange student program under marketing department. All my courses were bachelor level courses but you are allowed to take master s courses as well during the add/drop period as long as you fulfil the pre-requisites. You can prove this by signing a form saying you have taken the required courses beforehand in Aalto or some other institution. All my courses were in English as are nearly every course in CityU. Summary of all the courses I took: Business and Hong Kong Society Lectured by Mary Pang, evaluation: 40% quiz, 20% peer evaluation, 40% group presentation and written report. The course was an introduction to Hong Kong society from a business perspective and highly popular among exchange students. During the lectures we covered very useful basic information about Hong Kong as well as its near history from the British empire to the current day. Several
lectures were also dedicated to societal theories such as capitalism and communism. Dr. Pang very much encouraged not to take everything as the truth but engage in critical thinking. This showed in the lectures too, where we analysed several topics from very different kinds of perspectives. For the group project we were divided into to teams by the course assistant and had to choose a current topic from Hong Kong business field and do a critical analysis of the matter. The group project was not very difficult but each team consisted of 10 students which made it one of the most time consuming tasks during my exchange since it was absolutely impossible to come up with meeting times suitable for everyone. Moreover, several students felt like the teacher was quite demanding but did not give very much support or guidance in the team project. Overall, I would recommend this course because I learned a lot of information about Hong Kong I otherwise would not have learnt. Strategy and Policy Lectured by Wongsang Ruy, evaluation: exam 50%, group presentation and report 50% This course came highly recommended by previous Aalto exchange students in CityU and indeed was one of the best courses I took in CityU. The topics covered all the basic areas in strategy, from analysing the company s internal and external environment, to strategy formulation and implementation. The lectures were very interesting, easy to follow and consistent. For this course I bought the course book for 250HKD (approx. 30e). I would recommend buying the book as the lectures were more of a summary of each chapter and passing the exam based on lecture notes would have been hard. The group project was also interesting: We had to choose a company facing challenges and analyse its current strategy as well as suggest improvement areas. We chose the mobile phone manufacturer HTC. Workload for the course was moderate for the course, with much more emphasis in towards the end when we had presentations and exams. The exam was relatively easy as long as you had read the course book and cases covered during lectures. Data-centric Marketing Evaluation: attendance 20%, exam 50%, group presentation and report 30% Another very interesting course I took in CityU. The course revolved around how to make use of Big Data and its applications in company s marketing efforts. The course was very introductory and covered a range of methods for analysis from customer life time value to social media analysis. I particularly liked how the course tried to focus on the logical and mathematical side of marketing instead of content creation. This course had mandatory attendance but you could skip 3 lectures. Workload was relatively low even though our group had only 3 members as opposed to others with 4-5 members. The group project was in my opinion the most interesting of my exchange: We had to
choose a company/current business topic/event and analyse its presence on Twitter. We chose Samsung Galaxy Note 7 s explosion incident and it was very interesting to examine how Samsung and other Twitter users responded to the event. There also was an exam which included a lot of calculations and was very easy. Creativity in Marketing Lectured by Wisteria Tong, evaluation: attendance 20%, exam 30%, group report and presentation 50% The course that was the least interesting but also had the smallest workload. The topic of the course was literally how to use creativity in marketing, starting from the definition of creativity to the tools how to enhance one s creativity. The lectures were quite uninteresting (once we spend over an hour in defining mind mapping and brainstorming) and included a lot of activities and use of creativity. However, there was no exam and evaluation was based on group work and peer evaluation. In this course too, our group was way too big for efficient team work (8 people) but on a positive note, workload per person was relatively small. There were two group projects: a smaller one where we had to come up with an idea to enhance an existing product creatively and a bigger one where we had to come up with a totally new and innovative product or service, conduct market research and develop a business model. Attendance for the lectures was mandatory for 70% of the lectures. Mobile Applications for Business Lectured by Yang Kit Chung, evaluation: individual assignments 10%, group presentation and report 40%, exam 50% A nice course on mobile applications and how to use them in your business. This course was an introductory course that required no programming skills, however, if you have done any programming previously, this course is very easy and straightforward. The lectures were quite hard to understand as the teacher s English was not too good, but time passed easily doing weekly challenges using the courses programming interface, AppInventor. Weekly challenges constituted 10% of your grade but they had a wide range in difficulty. For the group project we had to come up with a business idea and design and implement a mobile application. For the group project it is essential you have good team members preferably with coding experience because piling an even moderately complicated application in AppInventor is time consuming for a beginner.
Free time and other activities People warned me beforehand that Hong Kong is an expensive city which holds true in some parts but mostly prices are similar to Finland. Housing is very expensive: I was very lucky to receive campus accommodation that cost me only around 5000HKD for the entire semester. Campus accommodation is however hard to get so looking up other options is smart too. Most of my friends stayed at Apple Dorm or Campus HK. Apple Dorm rooms are really really small but relatively close to campus whereas Campus HK was further away but rooms were nicer and more spacious. Campus food is very cheap and eating out is cheaper compared to Finland. I ate mostly on campus but the food options do not change on a daily basis so you get bored of the food quite easily. There were however some nice an cheap markets and restaurant areas close to campus that were also popular among the locals.
The closest grocery store is one of the most expensive chains in HK, but was the one that I used most often since the next best options we quite far away. Especially dairy and meat products are very expensive but otherwise food product prices are same level as Finland. There are also very nice restaurants all over the city, the closer you go to the centre the more prices start to rise. What I especially liked about Hong Kong was nice cafes which were nice places for studying if campus library was getting boring. Hong Kong is also stacked with skyscraper bars that have the most stunning views over the city. Most of my money went went into travelling which was cheap from Hong Kong and something I definitely recommend taking advantage of while in Hong Kong. During the fall term there were not that many breaks, only two times we had a three day weekend. I however had class only from Tuesday to Friday so I was able to travel quite a lot during the semester too. Me and my friends visited Taiwan, China and Malaysia. Flights were cheap as long as you bought them a few weeks before departing. I also travel for 6 weeks after university ended, backpacking through Vietnam, Cambodia and Myanmar. Getting to now other students was very easy. If you re active in the beginning, you are bound to meet like-minded people since the amount of activities organised during the first weeks is endless. What I best liked about my exchange was the fact that no matter what you wanted to do, you could send a message to a group of people and there was always more than one person eager to join you. And in a city like Hong Kong, you never run out of options in terms of what to do. There are endless amounts of cultural events, shopping opportunities or sightseeing. If you want to spend time outdoors, there are numerous astonishingly
beautiful hikes, sunset/sunrise spotting options, boat trips and beaches. Almost whatever you can think of is only a few MTR stops away. Hong Kong is a small city geographically and very crowded. Prepare for frustration especially during rush hour. Local people are very helpful and friendly, however, sometimes frustratingly slow and not looking where they are going. Otherwise, I did not experience that big of a culture shock as I would have expected: Hong Kong is a very western city compared to other Asian cities. Weather was very warm in the beginning and heat waves continue to late autumn. End November and December were more chilly and you needed a jacket to wear outdoors. Classrooms are also quite chilly since the air-conditioning is on throughout classes and at a very cold temperature. Final words I would recommend very much recommend Hong Kong and CityU for exchange studies. Hong Kong is a wonderful and international city full of things to do. You will get to know other exchange students very easily and sooner you think you will have a family kind of feeling with the big community. CityU is a good school that has a wide selection of courses ranging and I especially liked that I was able to take courses that also taught me something about the local business culture. I would not change anything from my exchange, everything went really well. I think being active in getting to know people and taking part in different activities in the beginning helped a lot in this. I might have stressed a bit too much about the quality of our groupworks and some of the final exams because no one really knew what to expect. During my exchange I learned a lot about Hong Kong, China and South East Asia in general. Courses I took taught me not only about the topics covered during them but also the way of studying and working in
Hong Kong. International culture of Hong Kong that truly is a combination of east and west was fascinating and something I am sure to miss after the exchange. I also learned how small culture differences between European people become when you do your exchange so far away. I also feel like I learned things about myself during the exchange and grew as a person. This was my first time living outside Finland or Helsinki even so I became much more independent and learned to take care and be responsible of myself in a totally different way. Exchange really pushes you out of your comfort zone. During the first weeks adjusting to the culture and weather and crowds was slightly challenging but soon enough Hong Kong felt like home and especially in the end I felt like I had real routines. I was surprised how easily I adjusted to different culture but probably my closest friends, who were mostly Nordic, helped me in this since everything was new to us all and talking about our experiences was easy and everyone felt understood. Networking skills and group working skills improved significantly and it became easier to understand other people s opinions when you learned also to get to know their culture. Travelling solo was also a new experience that I value highly afterwards.