School
March 31, 2010
Even though I am on a trip to the other side of the world, I have to remember why it is I am here, school?? School at a major Asian university you think could not be that different from any other major university around the world, right?
First topic worth mentioning is the new campus surroundings, which is comparable to a university that has been dropped unexpectedly on a tropical forest in the foothills of the Himalayas! I say this because most dorms “hostels” and especially mine are widely spread out on different layers of hills around campus making walking to class a noteworthy hiking experience. I may be exaggerating a little but let’s just say after one “climb” to class you will catch that bus that comes every twenty minutes.
Besides being so hilly, the campus is truly the most beautiful campus I’ve ever seen with “back trails” to class surrounded by rare flowers and populated with unique species of birds, surreal images for my American eyes. Another discovery was that the school bus from the train station on campus stops running at 11 pm on weekdays and midnight on weekends, so if you come back late you have to get yourself back. Unfortunately my hostel is literally the farthest dorm from the train station, taking at least 30 minutes to walk there. With no T-link equivalent, supposing that I am in decent shape and that my local friends were exaggerating, one night I was determined to make it home in less than 30 minutes. After climbing and getting lost in the back trails to “save” time I arrived in my dorm a full hour later humbled and sweaty complete with the realization that they were not exaggerating and that taking a taxi for $3 (USD) is not the lazy choice, but the correct one. The one similar visually discernable characteristic of both this campus and my home university’s campus is the upperclassmen, based solely on the size of their calves.
Speaking of discerning students from each other, in the cases of my engineering classes it is not too hard to find me considering I am the only white Caucasian and just one of only three international students in my two engineering classes. This is good due to my attendance being so noticeable I must go and equally bad for the same reason. Most interestingly and possibly more perturbing than anything is the advancement of their teaching practicality regarding their students’ skill development usefulness with real life applications. Every engineering student here at CUHK (The Chinese University of Hong Kong) has a favorite programming language whether it is Java, C, or C++ it does not matter as long as they know one. My ignorance is blatantly obvious in my systems simulation course where our semester project is to write a computer program to solve problems of time management in the supply chain manufacturing/distribution of my team and help with most of the work, however, it is a constant struggle to contribute whist teaching myself the basics of computer programming that they are already “understood” to have mastered by this course. Even though computer programming skills are not as predominant for my major back home there is good news from the eastern front, English is surprisingly the only language of instruction for any engineering courses at CUHK as well as throughout all major Asian universities meaning that no matter how advanced Asia becomes in industry and technology English is the world wide taught and known language of engineering forever giving us native English speaking engineers a fighting chance in today’s brutal job market.