Japan was really nice to visit and I loved it a lot. I learned a lot about the culture and the lifestyle in Osaka and some of the surrounding areas. However, I know that Tokyo will be more interesting and will have a different lifestyle than the other parts of Japan. When we got back to Hong Kong, we all were preparing to finish studying for our exams that we had during the week or the upcoming weekend. When I went to set up for a co-op interview, my laptop wouldn’t turn on and started freezing. I was really freaking out because all of my notes and pictures were on the laptop and I couldn’t start studying with it not turning on.
The next day I called Apple and they told me that from what I was telling them that I lost all my files and would have to do a data recovery before I do anything else. I had a feeling the night before that I lost my files because of what I saw in the Disk Utility setting and knew that I was in a jam. It was really upsetting not having my laptop and I didn’t know what to do with my history exam because I had my own notes and now they were lost. I have to wait until I go back to the states to get a new laptop and try to get my files back. My professor was very helpful and sent me the notes from the whole semester to make sure that I didn’t have to read all the chapters over again to get the information I was looking for. It was also a good thing that my classes left all the notes up online, so I had all the material I needed.
The exams here at HKUST are really different than at Drexel. Each exam room isn’t the typical room you would have an exam in. They are held in the common rooms, some of the gym rooms, and game rooms. My two exams were in the Multipurpose Room and the Table Tennis Room. The exams are run for 3 hours and take place all day from 8:30am to about 8:30pm every day of the week. My history exam was on Saturday at 8:30am and my Probability exam was on Monday at 8:30am also. It was just like freshman year over again, where my exams were in the morning at 8am. However, at Drexel, I have never had an exam on a weekend, so it was pretty strange to me. The rooms were set up with numbered seats and everyone sat alphabetically for most exams or you could just sit wherever you wanted if you weren’t assigned a seat. For the first 30 minutes and the last 15 minutes of the exam, you cannot leave the room to make sure that people attempt the exam and that there is no one running up to the front to hand in the exam afterwards.
Once all my exams were done I was really happy that I finished my classes here at HKUST. It was a real experience here in Hong Kong and taking classes in a different educational setting than American. I learned a lot about myself, how I learn in school, and what I need to make sure that I do my best in classes. I saw a lot of different aspects of life and how fit into the other side of the world. I learned how people view engineering students here in Hong Kong and the pressures that they have. I feel really lucky that I have the opportunities that Drexel provides me because I have witnessed the struggles and the stress of seniors applying to graduate school in America. I made many friends and feel that they will last a lifetime. I plan on visiting my roommate in Tokyo in the coming years and she plans on visiting me because she has never been to the US before. With all that said I still feel very blessed and happy that I got to come to Hong Kong and live here for 4 months. My family is coming this week to visit and I can’t wait to show them around Hong Kong and spend the holidays with them on the other side of the world! Looking forward to the Fierce Pierce and Jones families to take Hong Kong!
