Audrey Zong, HKUST Exchange, Fall 2013
My name is Audrey Zong, I am currently a junior studying Mechanical Engineering at Northwestern University. I will be spending this fall at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST), and I absolutely cannot wait! I am a transfer student; having spent my first year at the University of California Berkeley, I thought studying abroad would be a challenge due to the issue with credits and graduating within four years. When I turned to the IPD office, I learned about science and technology schools that would make it possible for me to graduate on time, and the Hong Kong school stood out to me in particular.
To me, study abroad is an opportunity to get cultured, to open my mind to new cultures, customs and people, and what better place to do that but in Hong Kong. I have always taken an interest in Hong Kong, for its cosmopolitan, hustlin’ and bustlin’ feel. It seems like a city that unites people from all over the world, and pretty soon I’ll be joining in. From businessmen on business trips to couples on vacation, to local students from Beijing, Zhejiang, Shanghai and non-locals from Europe, Africa, Asia, is no saying who I will meet in Hong Kong, and I can’t wait. The most recent report states that Hong Kong University of Science and Technology has hit a high of 18% non-local students. While it’s true most schools in the United States have a significant percentage of international students, we tend to fall back to our comfort zones. However, there’s less of a “comfort zone” while studying abroad: while there will be students with similar backgrounds, I can safely guess that there will also be a large portion of students who are from different backgrounds. I am so excited to learn more about these students, where they come from and their background. After all that, I hope to bring back my experiences and share them at Northwestern to inspire more people to partake in the study abroad experience. But for now, I’ll be sharing my HKUST episodes through the IPD blog!
This is the school. Yep, my school looks out to the ocean!