Study Abroad Blog: Hong Kong: Orientation

The program I am in for the summer is called the International Summer School (ISS)
At the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK)

Students living on campus move in by the 27th and orientation is on the 28th

I took my campus tour on the 27th but there is designated time on the day of orientation for students who come in very late the day before.
On the tour we went to the office of academic links (OAL) to fill out some forms and get our student id cards
Lucky for us it was a nice day out so walking wasn’t a problem.
At the OAL they also give you your orientation package which consists of your id card, forms, schedule, info packet, gym card, souvenir tshirt and an umbrella (the umbrella was the BEST thing in there since its rainy season here).

The rest of the tour was to see a bit of the rest of the campus but the OAL was by far the most important stop of the day.

Day of orientation all of the ISS students gathered at Shaw college lecture theatre to learn a bit about the school and regulations

Louis Wong, the person most students kept in contact with for questions before coming to HK, spoke to us about the MTR, school facilities, visiting hours for dorms, professors, etc.
He also told us this is a dry and smoke-free campus. if you wanted to take a smoke you have to take the bus to the MTR station, cross to the other side that's not part of campus, smoke and take the trip back up to your dorm... that’s a LOT of travelling for just one cigarette, so just save yourself the trouble and don’t smoke :)

We also took a picture with all of the ISS students. I didn’t realize just how many students were in the program until we all gathered that day.
I will post up the picture when CUHK uploads it.

After orientation students can take the campus tour if the haven’t done so already.
For those who have they had some time before the welcoming dinner at 7pm

Kuo Mou Hall students (that’s me :D) and Grace Tien/Daisy Li students got on different coach buses and met up at the restaurant
We went to Superstar Seafood Restaurant in Tsuen Wan.
The bus ride was around 40mins to the restaurant but time passes by quickly when talking to your new friends :)

For our welcoming dinner we got a 12 course meal to give students a taste of a traditional Chinese dinner
I’d say it was a good dinner and it definitely made me realize (again) just how many students are in ISS; we pretty much took up the whole restaurant!

But...in my opinion it would have been more authentic if we got white rice.
To my fellow Chinese students, no white rice with your dinner sounds just absurd doesn’t it?!