International student Maximilian Barth had a big surprise when he started his undergraduate studies at the University of Hong Kong last summer. Despite his choice of courses for a politics major, he was told to make room for two 'core courses' from a menu of 67, a new requirement for first-year students.
The choices - including Girl Power in a Man's World, Genetics and Human Nature, Feeding the World and Global Citizenship - are part of HKU's common core curriculum, which will be the centrepiece of its four-year degree to be launched next year.
By then, first-year students will be required to take six core courses, which account for 36 of the 240 credits needed for graduation. They will have to choose at least one and not more than two from each of four areas of inquiry: scientific and technological literacy; humanities; global issues; and China: culture, state and society.
Cross-disciplinary in nature and inquiry-based, the specially designed courses are meant to be more intellectually challenging than the average general education course. They are the result of vigorous vetting by a 16-member committee. HKU academics have put forward more than 200 course proposals since 2009.
'We spent hours and hours debating in vetting the proposals,' says the committee's chairwoman, Professor Amy Tsui Bik-may, the university's pro-vice chancellor (teaching and learning).
The core courses aim to broaden students' understanding of the world and equip them for degree study. 'First-year students find themselves in a new environment and are at a different stage of learning when they will be challenged by a lot of ideas,' says Tsui.