Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST)

This course is taught in Putonghua and requires students to read materials in Chinese. This course selects the classic texts such as THE BOOK OF SONGS, THE SONGS OF THE SOUTH, the HAN YEUFU, and Ancient Poetry, to understand the early stage. The course examines the characteristics of Chinese poetry, the aesthetic characteristics of early poetry and the historical position and price in the development of Chinese literature value. The course focuses on the contrast between ancient poetry and modern life, and discusses the value of ancient poetry in modern life. The course improves aesthetic taste and the ability to understand Chinese poetry.

This course examines the general legal framework and legal issues arising in day-to-day business dealings through the interpretation and analysis of business cases and statutes. It introduces basic principles of business law: laws of contract, contract for the sale of goods and service, professional negligence, agency, partnership, employment law, and business ethics. Topics covered include basic legal principles and rules required by business personnel; situations encountered in the professional field; legislative materials and legal documents; relevant legal issues which may arise in the context of legal occupations; Hong Kong legal system, the court system and the sources of Hong Kong law; legal system on litigants' rights and duties; essential elements of a valid contract and the remedies available in case of a breach of contract; role of contract law on consumer-related issues; role of employment law on job-related issues and employment disputes; law of torts and the right to compensation and damages; Sale of Goods Ordinance; and corporate and partnership law.

This course seeks to enhance the market competitiveness of HKUST graduates by making them effective users of spoken Putonghua and Standard Written Chinese in meeting communicative needs in academic, social and professional contexts. The course materials and activities help students acquire fluency and accuracy in the use of Chinese by engaging them in authentic communication tasks based on real-life situations and needs. Students' mastery of Putonghua phonology and Chinese syntax and lexis will also be enhanced through in-class teaching and outside class practice.

Undergraduate level course in probability.Topics include Sample spaces, conditional probability, random variables, independence, discrete and continuous distributions, expectation, correlation, moment generating function, distributions of function of random variables, law of large numbers and limit theorems. Text: Sheldon Ross, A FIRST COURSE IN PROBABILITY.

The societal energy transition from fossil fuels to renewable sources requires novel energy technologies, with material design and engineering at the center of the innovation process. This course explains the enabling materials science and engineering behind advanced energy technologies by answering questions such as why lithium powers our batteries and why it takes silicon to make a solar panel. The course also examines major material challenges of emerging energy technologies. Course topics include: material structure-property correlations used in energy technologies, materials synthesis and fabrication techniques for their incorporation into energy devices, and material evaluation principles in energy applications.

Inner workings of modern digital computer systems and tradeoffs at the hardware-software interface. Topics include: instructions set design, memory systems, input-output systems, interrupts and exceptions, pipelining, performance and cost analysis, assembly language programming, and a survey of advanced architectures.

This course is a survey of the history of political, social, economic, and cultural changes in East Asia—primarily China, Japan, and Korea, to a lesser extent Taiwan and Vietnam—from the 1800s to the end of the Cold War in the early 1990s. We examine the tumultuous interactions of these East Asia countries with the West and with each other. To locate the historical origins of twenty-first-century East Asia, we study the internal and external dynamics that undermined the Confucian orders, fomented revolutions and wars, brought unprecedented human suffering and economic disasters, generated extraordinary prosperity, developed democratic and authoritarian institutions in different societies.

This course introduces various elements of starting an entrepreneurial journey, including team building, crowd sourcing, and use of social media. Based on an experiential learning model, industry representatives provide in class discussion while students also have opportunities to gain authentic experiences in different industries and reaching out to network of co-working spaces. This course does not require previous entrepreneurial experience or any form of business training.

This course provides familiarity with poverty issues including poverty measurement, underlying causes of poverty, the impact of poverty on society and government programs and policies that address poverty. The course illustrates principles with real-world applications. Though the course discusses poverty in a broad context of developing and developed countries, an extra emphasis is put on poverty related issues in Hong Kong and mainland China.

This Cantonese course is for students with Chinese language background who are beginners in the learning of Cantonese. It equips students with the Cantonese proficiency and communication competence necessary for living and networking in Hong Kong as well as a fast integration into the local culture. The learning activities involve developing listening and speaking skills in an attempt to build confidence and fluency in using Cantonese for daily communication.