Walking around the University of Hong Kong

This past Friday, I had the day off and took the time to trek all the way down to the University of Hong Kong (aka HKU) to pay tuition fees and enrol in my PGDE. Thankfully, I'm considered a local student because I am considered a resident of HK so I don't have to pay full international rates which are about 80% higher.

I strolled around the campus after leaving the faculty of education. Not overly inspiring architecture, unlike some parts of my alma mater, the University of Toronto, but then again HKU is only a bit less 100 years old while the U of T is over 175 years old.

HKU main campus is located on the western edge of Hong Kong Island backed up against a hill. It's a beautifully hilly and forested campus but the buildings, especially the more modern ones didn't exactly inspire me. However, there were a few turn of the 20th century colonial buildings that I took an interest in.




The strengths of the school are its graduate studies, law, dentistry, medicine, education and engineering faculties. It's the premier school in HK. I've heard rumblings that the quality of education at HKU has gone down in recent years but I have no way of really knowing since I'm new here and it's all up to debate. It seems the brightest students in HK leave the territory for greener tertiary education pastures abroad unless they're studying law or medicine. It was interesting to hear quite a bit of Putonghua spoken on the campus. That's a good sign: HKU is attracting students from the mainland.

So how are things at HKU different from universities I've visited on the mainland? Even from a 1 day, superficial observation, things are leaps and bounds different. There are Tibetan monks walking around, signs for religious and interest clubs/groups advertising their meetings/activities, Starbucks on the campus, from what I could see, the dorms looked liveable.
There was even an HKU art and history museum off the Bonham Road entrance.

There were no guards stopping curious visitors from entering the campus. In fact, like any western university, all buildings were public (unlocked!) and I was free to roam and photograph whatever I wanted. There was ample parking for the university staff and students (no shortage of luxury cars either!). All in all, HKU is a a big departure from the lockdown that most Chinese universities experience.

HKU is only one of two strictly English medium of instruction universities in Hong Kong (the other being the business/accounting-strong University of Science and Technology); other universities use a mix of Cantonese (notice I didn't say Chinese!) and English. I hate how the Chinese University of HK advertises they teach in "Chinese" but it's really Cantonese. I've known a few mainland students who were looking into studying there because of the 'Chinese' moniker but were disappointed after finding out that they don't really teach in Chinese there. I don't blame them; change the name to the Cantonese University of HK damnit!

There are other universities in HK as well, Open University, Baptist University, City University, Lingnan University, the University of Science and Technology and Polytechnic University but the top two schools are the University of Hong Kong and Chinese university, in that order. So if you're thinking of studying abroad in HK, your best bet is HKU and don't even bother considering Chinese University if you are thinking about studying mandarin. Head north to the mainland for a much cheaper and immersive experience, after all, HKers in general speak pretty bad mandarin!