Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST)

This course introduces selective Western and Chinese literary novels, and provides a forum for extended practice in the art of creative writing. It is designed for students who have little or no previous experience writing literary texts in a particular genre. Introductory workshops cover a variety of technical and imaginative concerns through exercises, readings, and discussions. In addition to weekly reading literary classics, this course focuses on writing literary novels in Chinese or cross the boundaries of the genre.

Housing, unlike other goods, has its unique characteristics in terms of heterogeneity, durability, spatial fixity, and high purchase price relative to income. These suggest that conventional economic concepts need to be readdressed in order to analyze the microeconomic issues of housing. Besides, a significant number of households own residential properties by borrowing mortgages. A substantial collapse in housing prices might lead to negative equity for those households, and reduce their consumption and investment thereafter. Therefore, the macroeconomic implication of housing market dynamics cannot be overstated. The US subprime mortgage crisis during 2007-09 suggests that a sharp downturn in the housing market can cause negative spillovers to the aggregate economy. The first part of this course focuses on microeconomic issues like housing demand and supply analysis, models of housing market, rationales and effects of government's housing policies. The second part emphasizes the macroeconomic issues such as the stylized facts on housing market dynamics, causes of housing market fluctuations, and housing market spillovers. Applications to the subprime mortgage crisis of 2007-2009 and housing markets in Hong Kong and China are addressed. The objective of this course is to develop analytical frameworks by which students can address both the microeconomic and macroeconomic issues of housing.

This course introduces general topics in physics employing a calculus-based approach. Key course topics include: motions and Newton's laws, work and energy, conservation of energy and momentum, rotation, rigid body, simple harmonic and damped oscillations, forced oscillations, standing waves and sound waves, kinetic theory and the laws of thermodynamics. Prerequisite: single-variable calculus. Text: Young and Freedman, UNIVERSITY PHYSICS. Assessment: homework (10%), quizzes (40%), final exam (50%)

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.