It's hard to believe that my classes here are over! I still have one lecture tomorrow, because of a missed lesson due to the typhoon earlier in the year, but technically the lecture period is completed! I will have one final this coming Friday and one towards the end of the final schedule, on December 17. The weird thing about finals here is that they're conducted over the course of December, so you could have a final as late as December 23! You don't find out until they post the schedule around reading week, so I would recommend not making any plans for the end of the semester until then.
Since my time here is coming to an end, I wanted to reflect upon the way Hong Kong and HKU has met my expectations and the ways in which they have surprised me. Before coming here, I expected Hong Kong to have a lot more cultural elements, both from their British and Chinese past. It's been a lot harder than I expected to find cultural experiences, as most of Hong Kong has a similar big city culture to that of New York City. I was also surprised by how difficult it was to meet local students! The language barrier is definitely part of the problem, since local students almost always talk to each other in Cantonese. It's also likely that in group projects local students won't pick you because you're an exchange student. There's a stigma against exchange students that they don't try very hard because they don't care about their grades. My finance TA, for instance, was shocked that I did well on my midterm because I'm an exchange student. Due to this stigma, finding a productive group was really difficult. It's especially stressful because group projects can make up 50% of your grade!! I would recommend being really aggressive and approaching students who you think will be good group members to join their group. This was something I wish that I had done, versus waiting to be picked or to be grouped with everyone else who didn't have a group (this is probably a sign). While it's been really cool living in Hong Kong and experiencing such a different way of life, it's also been the most difficult semester yet. I think the hardest part is that I didn't have anyone here who understood why I cared about doing well in my courses. One of the people I used to hang out with a lot told me that he felt like we were really close when I was easy-going at the beginning of the semester, but then I became "intense" as I was worried about my grades. When I got the chance to talk to other Freeman scholars, it made me feel a lot better because I realized I wasn't alone. Despite having a hard time, there are many small moments that I will treasure. One of my favorite moments was when my group for marketing was going to have a lunch meeting for our project and the two local students in our group asked if we'd want to eat off campus. They took us to a noodle shop nearby that specialized in pork chop noodles, which were so tasty! It was nice getting to know them more outside of class, and it was something I wish we had done sooner. Another fun moment was the mass dance competition, where groups from other universities around Hong Kong came to our campus to compete against our dance groups. I was shocked by how good everyone was, and by how huge the crowd was that had gathered to watch! It made me feel like I was part of HKU as I cheered on our teams.
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Emily BallBorn and raised in Aiea, HI, traveling to Hong Kong to study Human Resource Administration. Archives
January 2019
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