General Education Courses

Designed from a sociological perspective, but specifically for students without sociological background or much background knowledge about Hong Kong, this course shall guide them through the journey of Hong Kong and its people so far. It will pick up popular images about Hong Kong, such as "a laissez-faire economic miracle", "the safest place in the world", or "the land of opportunity", evaluating their validities or tracing their origins and implications. Selected contemporary issues arising from the city’s sustainable development will also be discussed, such as migration, inequality, and affordable housing.

(Not for students who have taken SOCI1201, 2104 or UGEC2865.)

This course aims to assist students to adapt to University life. It also introduces the role and function of University in society. There are three parts: the first part introduces some basic issues of university learning. The second part covers issues of modern university and the third part talks about overcoming learning barriers and advices on university life planning.

The purposes of this course are to

1. introduce the environmental problems encountered in Hong Kong;
2. help students understand the scientific nature of these environmental problems;
3. enable students to use scientific concepts developed in the course to evaluate the options available in dealing with these environmental problems; and
4. provide students with a general overview of the Hong Kong Government's environmental programmes.

What is Science? How did/does/will it change the way we live? Is our food safe to eat? What are GMOs? Why are we prone to diseases? Are radioactive substances friends or foes? How are weather data collected and what these data meant to us?

This course aims at exploring the traditional and contemporary ways by which Buddhist teachings are expressed and experienced in the lives of the believers, in groups and individually. There are three major components to this course: 1/ Discuss the body-mind relation, and the nurturing of mental and physical health with topics such as dietary practices, meditation, mindfulness, counselling, and Buddhist psychology; 2/ Contemplate on the cultural manifestations of Buddhism in literature, popular culture, language, photography, film, folk custom, etc; and 3/ Consider the light that Buddhism may shed on topics of contemporary life such as love, death, transgender issues. No prior knowledge of Buddhism is necessary.

The objective of this course is to encourage students to explore the start-up journey and gain entrepreneurship experience. Through project -based learning, students will form a team to co-work together to define a start-up project that they want to do in this course. With this ownership of the project, they will also learn how to collaborate, communicate and contribute to the project. With the tailor-made lectures based on the roadmap of start-up, including the session about impact to society (introduction to United Nation ’s 17 SDGs), students will learn different start -up skillsets step by step. In addition, each group of the start-up team will be assigned an industrial mentor to share experience and guidance to the team to upgrade the business plan to a realistic plan. Finally, students will have a presentation in the demo day to share their projects to potential investors. After this course, students will be invited to join CUHK Entrepreneurs Day organized by CUHK Alumni Affairs Office. Thus, this course provides whole -person training to encourage students to be innovative and have entrepreneurship spirit.

Through a combination of experiential learning activities and web-based delivery, this course aims at expose students to a number of intense debates surrounding globalization such as free trade, global culture, national sovereignty, the question of multinational corporations and labour rights and the anti-globalization movement. The objective is to build basic knowledge of the opposing views on globalization, their political and ideological bases, and implications for political and personal actions. More importantly, through the experiential learning activities, students will be able to develop the sensitivity and competences necessary to interpret our everyday life experiences in the light of globalization and to articulate their personal positions on a host of life and career issues.

Film genres have been popular since the beginning of this artistic medium and remain quite popular today. This class will examine the cultural and economic reasons for their continuing popularity. Film showings and film clips will demonstrate how genres evolve over time, how some of the great film directors have made genre films of lasting impact, and how others seek to subvert them and their norms on commercial or ideological grounds. This class assumes no prior knowledge of film.

(GESC2010 is double-coded with COMM2932.  Not for Journalism and Communication Majors; and students who have taken COMM2932.  If students wish to use the completed COMM2932 as a substitute for GESC2010, they must submit the 'Application for Using Other Course to Fulfill College General Education Requirement Courses' to the College for approval.)

This course explores the most popular sport in the world, football, from multiple perspectives related to social science. Students are expected to critically examine the development of football into a global game from historical, sociological, political, economic, as well as cultural perspectives. It will also address the relationship of football with major issues of modern society such as globalization, nationalism, class, racism, etc.

By introducing students to the socio-economic, political and cultural foundation of complex and pluralistic modern societies, it also presents the major social trend creating modern society and life. It helps students to reflect on their roles and participation. It is hoped that it could enhance students’ self-awareness of the need of recognizing differences and being tolerant, as well as the diversity of moral values and beliefs in modern society.

University students are in transition from late adolescence to early adulthood. They face increasingly demanding life challenges. This course covers various issues related to psychosocial adjustment and personal development in early adulthood. Throughout this course, students will learn about the challenges of adult life, factors affecting physical and mental health, emotional awareness and emotion regulation, stress and stress management, development of self-identity, interpersonal relationship and communication, sexuality, and career development. 

This course will be devoted to the investigation of the growth dynamics of cities, their economic, social and environmental problems and the ways to develop sustainable cities. Many daily life examples of Hong Kong and other cities in China and western countries will be used to illustrate various urban issues and problems. After equipping with the knowledge of various urban issues and problems, students are expected to apply their academic knowledge and skill to address real life needs in urban communities by designing and participating a service-learning project in the course and then further enhance students’ academic and service learning ability.

This course introduces Hong Kong history and social development. From both macro and micro perspectives, thoughts are devoted to the sustainability of local culture and individuals. Through the evaluation of the characteristics of different interpretations on major Hong Kong historical events and personalities since 1840 and its impacts on the development of Hong Kong society, students can re-examine their local cultural heritage and their commitment to the community. Field trips and topical studies will be organized to explore the evolution of local society through personal experience.

Through lecture and seminar, students will be introduced to selected famous plays in the world. The latter part of the course will be dedicated to practical work including rehearsals and technical theatre operations in attempts to stage excerpts from these plays. The Shaw College Lecture Theatre will be used as the teaching, rehearsing and performing venue.

Since the genetic codes and sequences of human beings and many different organisms become available, their role in biological processes and diseases become more understood and comprehensible to human beings. Possibilities of making good use of these bioinformatics knowledge and manipulation of genes have opened a brave new world for us to explore. This course in intended to introduce basic concepts of gene structures, gene functions, genetic engineering, synthetic biology and the impacts of such gene technology on our society. Genetic engineering of biological organisms aims to help human beings to resolve problems associated with our sustainability on planet earth in various aspects of health and medical cares, food and energy supply, environmental sustainability, industrial production and monitoring, etc, all have significant impacts on our society as a whole, despite some might cause much debate.

This course gives an introduction to students on how to appreciate Cantonese opera. Learning to appreciate and understand the Cantonese opera and the relationship with its contexts may enhance students’ understanding of the Chinese culture and aesthetics, as well as improve students’ personal morality. Both lectures and field visits will be arranged to describe the workplace requirements and demonstrate positive value, professional attitude and work ethics through Cantonese opera activities. Students will be taught the aesthetics and practices of this art form and encouraged to participate in performance, creation and research of Cantonese opera.

Emotion (literally means “evoke motion”) energizes and directs human behavior. Emotion dysregulation, however, disrupts normal mental processes and impairs psychological functioning. This course covers the basic scientific knowledge about what emotion is, how emotion affects body and mind, how emotion dysregulation results in different emotional disorders (e.g., anxiety or mood disorders), and what one can do to manage and transform emotion into positive energy to serve adaptive purposes. Throughout this course, students will learn about (1) the nature of emotions, (2) how emotions affect body and mind, (3) symptoms of different emotional disorders, and (4) effective techniques for emotion regulation.

Since ancient time, human beings have been curious about and fascinating with the remote sky. This curiosity and fascination have boosted the invention of various techniques in observational astronomy and, on the other hand, the spread of mythology about constellations under cultural influences. This course introduces the mythology in both the East and the West, stimulating students to ponder on the cultural significances behind the stories. In addition, students are encouraged to practice basic techniques in observational astronomy, acquiring knowledge through experiential learning. No scientific knowledge beyond junior secondary education is assumed.