17Department of Electronic Engineering, City University of Hong Kong

學生校友通訊站

Faculty Medal 2006

I am very glad to be awarded the Faculty Medal 2006, it serves as

a proof to my academic achievement and I would like to share my

joy with all my fellow schoolmates. First, I would like to thank all

the teachers who have taught me over the last three years, in

particular, my Final Year Project Supervisor, Dr L M Po

(Department of Electronic Engineering). Dr Po has provided me a

lot of helpful and useful advice for my project and raised my inter-

est in learning. Without the teachers’ patience and clear guidelines,

we would have great difficulties in understanding the complex

course materials. University is not only a place for you to build up

academic knowledge, inter-personal skills, other personalities can

also be improved by taking part in different kinds of extra-curricu-

lar activities. Active involvement in those activities can also build

up closer relationship with other colleagues. I enjoy the time spent

with other classmates in student learning activities discussing aca-

demic problems in a small tutorial group. I do believe this kind of

knowledge sharing benefits all the group-mates by stimulating in-

terest in learning via interactive discussions. Finally, I would like

to advise my fellow schoolmates to make the best use of time in

the university, to be active learners and try to share experience

with the junior students which may help with their future success.

BEIE Graduation Dinner

Faculty Medal for 2006

Prize presentation

Exchange in Carnegie Mellon University, USA

Experience US

Experiencing culture difference is exciting and rewarding, espe-

cially before you are really merged into that culture. Last semester

I had a wonderful exchange experience in Carnegie Mellon

University, one of the best engineering schools in US. I was really

amazed at the very different scenes in every life aspect on the other

hemisphere and I feel necessary to put it down in a few paragraphs.

Pittsburgh and CMU

Pittsburgh, the city I stayed for 6 months, was the second largest

city in the eastern state Pennsylvania. It had been the heart of the

United States for a number of decades, for the city produced over

half of the steel in the nation and as a result it is also known as the

steel city. CMU (Carnegie Mellon University) is the best univer-

sity in the city and also one of the top universities in the country,

especially on Computer Science (ranked No.2 in 2006) and Elec-

trical and Computer Engineering (ranked No.6 in 2006). The cam-

pus lies on the beautiful Oakland Hill, suburb of Pittsburgh, and is

neighbored by the University of Pittsburgh. CMU has a history of

over 100 years and has fostered tons of leaders in world’s engi-

neering realm, including Dr.Mao,Yishen, China’s famous bridge

architect and the first PhD recipient of CMU.

Life in the US

Getting life smooth was a little hard in the first several weeks, for

I was not ready to be westernized. The first task was to find some-

where to eat, although it was no more a concern after my friends

introduced me ‘campusfood.com’, the online food order website.

Since there are few cafeteria or big canteens in CMU and most

dining places are just burger counters, I had to dine off campus.

Fortunately there are lots of small food restaurants with reason-

able price around my apartment. But it really took me a while to

get attracted to those stuff and it was a little surprising that the so-

called western food is not so tasty as when they are sold in China.

As far as I’m concerned, Mcdonald’s is really hard to resist here

but it’s a totally different story in US: I won’t have the courage to

try the food there again! The best food I found was pizza, which I

Student Exchange

Alan W L LI (2006 BEIE Graduate)

18

usually reply our email within several hours, even after midnight.

I tried several times to ask questions after the midnight and sur-

prisingly received the answers at 2 in the morning! There’s really

no time restriction on the conversation between students and

teachers. They also grade the tests with super speed. All my DSP

test results were announced in the evening of the test dates. Even

finals took only 3 to 4 days.

University education also reflects considerable flexibility. There’s

actually no deadline of add/drop period: you can drop your course

when you find the midterm result not satisfying or are not confi-

dent to take the coming final. I was told that you could even drop

the course after the final as long as the lecturer agrees. Finals are

not so formal as well. Teachers usually write the exam paper the

day before the final or in the morning of the final date if it is ar-

ranged in the afternoon. Amazingly enough, I even ‘skipped’ one

final which I prepared for three days. Just when the final was about

to start, the teacher secretly handed out one paper to each one and

said the following: ‘Based on the presentation and test grades of

this semester, I have estimated a grade for each one. If you are not

satisfied with this grade, you can just sign the form and skip the

final. If not, you can still attend the final.’ This was really exciting

news to me, since there’s really no room to enhance, I finished my

last final by signing the agreement!

Traveling around

My last several weeks were spent on traveling around. The first

major city I visited was New York. It’s a brilliant metropolis with

numerous exciting sites: I experienced the world’s unique view of

city skyscrapers from the top of the Empire State Building, the

tragic story told by the Ground Zero of former World Trade Center

Towers and also the splendid scene in Times Square. Washington

D.C. was my second stop, where I visited the Capitol, Washington

Monument and several President Memorials. Unlike other major

cities in US, the capital is very clean and tidy. I also dropped by a

number of top universities, like Harvard, MIT (just 10-minute walk

from Harvard), Princeton and Cornell. These are all great univer-

sities with long histories. Although they are far from modern and

anything exciting, the aged campuses reflect their matchless clas-

sic beauty.

Though time went by quickly, I am positive that I will remember

usually order online from different small pizza restaurants nearby.

Another difficult thing for me is to get around using public

transportations. Almost everyone in US has his or her own cars

and there’s really very little public transportation demand, except

metropolises like New York and Los Angeles. As a consequence,

the public transportation is very lousy. I usually had to wait over

30 minutes at a bus stop to get on the right bus. There was a time

when I stood in the snow for over one and half an hour before the

bus finally arrived. This tough experience, however, gave me a

good reason to buy a bike, which I relied heavily on in the next

several months. Although I had to bike together with cars, for there’s

no special lanes for bikes, it’s quite safe. The traffic is usually in

great order. Driving in US requires much consideration to others.

Cars will always stop when you walk or bike across (or even show

any sign of doing so).

My difficulties wouldn’t have been smoothed out so quickly with-

out my friends’ help. Americans are very helpful. A Taiwanese

American drove to help me buy and sell the bike. My roommate

was an Italian American. He was the best I met there. Not only did

he make me the first cheeseburger I had in US, he also gave me a

lot of help in my daily life. We chatted a lot about our countries

and our hobbies. He plays football for the university team and co-

incidently Pittsburgh Steelers won the Super Bowl this year!

Study in US

CMU is one of those toughest universities, especially famous for

its countless homework, which I experienced both its hardship and

its reward. One semester usually consists of 15 weeks and a typi-

cal 3-credit course requires 12-hour weekly effort. Finals never

take as much percentage as in CityU. It usually contributes 20% to

30% to the overall grade while the rest depends on coursework

and tests. For instance, the DSP course I took consists of 3 two-

hour tests and weekly homework and I usually spent over 10 hours

on each one. The heavy workload, however, rewarded me of deep

understanding of knowledge and its applications and also decent

grades.

Class atmosphere is a lot different from Asia. Classes in CMU are

seldom more than 30 students. Students tend to be more active,

frequently stopping the lecturer with different questions, related

or not. Teachers are both knowledgeable and responsible. They

19Department of Electronic Engineering, City University of Hong Kong

ECE department building, the landmark of

Carnegie Mellon University.

US Department of Education in Washington D.C.

The World Financial Center –

Wall Street

Entrance of Harvard

University

CHEN Jia Shu (BEECE, Yr-3 student)

all the details of my life in this foreign country. A new culture will

refresh your spirit, adding new elements that you never expect.

Exchange in NangYang Technological University(NTU) of Singapore

Hello, I’m Wesley! I’ve finished the exchange programme in

NangYang Technological University (NTU) of Singapore, so I want

to thank City U for giving me such a treasurable and unforgettable

opportunity as well as providing me the necessary financial support.

Studying in another country is not as easy as I’ve ever imagined.

There were too many troubles and difficulties I had to cope with,

such as financial problems and cultural shock, but learning to deal

with these problems helped me to develop my intelligence. In other

words, I acquired problem-solving skill during the exchange period,

which is very important for my self developments as well as my

career.

Most students found the campus of NTU very large when they just

arrived there. Of course, it is many times larger than City U. The

most impressive part about NTU is not how many disciplines

offered, but its natural and garden-like environment. Whenever I

felt tired or stressed, I preferred going out of my room to breath

the fresh air. Unlike Hong Kong, I could easily found stars shining

in the sky at night. As the life was very relaxing, I never got in-

somnia when living in Singapore. However, the teaching in NTU

was quite different from that at City U. At City U, we have a lot of

laboratory sessions and heavier workload. But at NTU, I almost

got no lab sessions, and the only lab was just for students to learn

but not to score. Also, I had to be self-initiated at NTU because

there were no quizzes at all in some subjects. In order to catch up

with the course materials, routine revisions had to be done by

myself. Thus, it would be difficult to excel in the exams unless

you are self-disciplined.

Singapore is particularly renowned for the quality of food. When

staying in Singapore, I was thinking of food every day. Especially

in Chinatown, the food in a street called “Smith Street” was

excellent. I strongly recommend it because it was always full of

peddlers selling local food and drinks. I still remember how deli-

cious the fried “guo tiao” with shrimps was. It was a famous local

food in Singapore. Besides, the Indian pastas in Little India were

excellent, and the price was reasonable. Therefore, if you want me

to introduce places for foods, I can easily give you several choices.