First-hand Experience

Experiential learning continues to be an integral part of education at HKU, with opportunities to engage in discipline-based and service learning in Hong Kong, Mainland China and overseas.

Architecture as Object and Place

Field trips to historic and culturally noteworthy sites in Mzainland China are deepening Architecture students’ appreciation of both the architectural qualities of the structures they visit and the societies from which they emerged. In spring 2019, one group of students went to mountainous Jiyuan in Henan to study classical temple architecture, while another visited a rural area in Zhejiang to study vernacular dwellings, including a traditional family courtyard house.

Owen Miu Ho-yeung, a third-year student of Bachelor of Arts in Architectural Studies, travelled to Zhejiang to investigate traditional domestic architecture. “I initially thought we would see very rigid and conservative forms of architectural expression, but I came to realise that traditional Chinese buildings can be as flexible and adaptive as modern buildings,” he said. The family courtyard particularly impressed him. “We had to survey the complex and it gave me a thorough picture of what is meant by the term ‘Chinese architecture’. This field trip made me understand the beauty behind this sophisticated architecture and its cultural implications,” he said.

Classmate Johanna Li Yin went to Henan and produced surveys, maps and drawings of the temple and surrounding area. “We had the rare opportunity to go inside the altar of the temple, where usually only Taoists are allowed to enter to do rituals. We witnessed their everyday rituals and daily life. We also were able to talk to local people and get a better understanding of their living conditions,” she said.

An Enriching Year

Starting from 2018–19, all third-year MBBS students embark on an ‘Enrichment Year’ in which they take charge of their learning by studying a non-medical subject, pursuing research, earning an extra degree, and / or undertaking service work. The first cohort returned refreshed and recharged, as the following examples illustrate.

Chan Wang-yeung went to impoverished Yongping county in Yunnan province to study the healthcare system and make recommendations to county officials. “This reminded me that public health is not only a matter of health but also involves multiple stakeholders and complex resource allocation,” he said. He also interviewed women there about perinatal depression. “The most impactful moment was when an interviewee told me about the failure of her first pregnancy. It made me realise that doctoring is not just about curing physical diseases but also helping heal patients’ mental wounds.”

Evelyn Chan Hui-yi went to Yale University as a visiting student where she studied anthropology, gender studies, global affairs and computer science, and volunteered with a healthcare outreach programme for the homeless and the student-run Yale Living History Project. “We listened to patients tell their life stories and wrote their narratives into their medical records. This helped us learn more about them as human beings instead of just patients,” she said.

Four Countries in Four Weeks

Science students visited coastal areas in four countries over the summer to deepen their awareness of climate change and understand the interactions between different agents in tropical, sub-tropical and temperate coastal systems.

The experiential learning course, organised by Dr Thiyagarajan Vengatesen and Professor Gray Williams of the Swire Institute of Marine Sciences and the School of Biological Sciences, required students to spend a week in Hong Kong studying coastal ecology and sustainability, then a week in Penang to study tropical coastal ecology with the Centre for Marine and Coastal Studies of the Universiti Sains Malaysia. The students then spent more than two weeks in the Gulf of Maine, visiting coastal communities in the US and Canada in a programme organised with Northeastern University.