Five engineering students explored Hong Kong over winter break, as part of the School of Engineering and Applied Science’s inaugural Winter Global Education Experience.
Administrators started the program to create an additional way for SEAS students to study abroad, since SEAS’ rigorous course requirements make it difficult for students to find time to do so. The five students spent 10 days in Hong Kong earlier this month, visiting research and manufacturing centers and attending networking events, alongside engineering students from the City University of Hong Kong (CityU).
For Ben Aguilar, SEAS ’14, the trip provided a study abroad opportunity that he would not have had otherwise.
“I had a big interest in getting abroad and exploring things while I can,” Aguilar said. “This seemed like a good way to not only get to Asia, but good for professional purposes, in terms of learning about the industries in Asia and the educational opportunities in Hong Kong. It seemed perfect for me.”
After touring the city on the first day, the students generally spent mornings participating in seminars and talking with professors at CityU, before conducting site visits and attending professional networking events later in the day. The students’ site visits included a nuclear power plant, a factory where trains were being built, and wind tunnels in which research was being conducted.
According to earth and environmental engineering professor Xi Chen, who led the trip, the goal was for students “to see a different culture and see the field from a different perspective.”
“Some of the stuff there really opened our eyes to how popular science is being used to generate the next generation of movies and images, for example,” Chen said. “The program also introduced students to corporations and how they become successful.”
Aguilar said that one of the highlights of the trip was attending a leadership forum with three professionals who spoke about their own experiences. The speakers included a sustainability expert from the Hong Kong subway, an environmental investment officer, and a Columbia alumnus who is a business consultant.
“I’m coming out of it with more of an understanding of what it means to be a leader from all kinds of different perspectives,” he said.
The trip was part of a larger SEAS initiative to encourage students to study abroad and to introduce students to foreign infrastructure plans, business, engineering, and culture, SEAS Assistant Dean Leora Brovman said in an October interview. Brovman, who manages SEAS’ study abroad programs, planned and attended the trip.
“Students have an opportunity through these shorter programs [winter break trips] to meet engineering professionals in an international context, to see what’s happening in engineering in an international context and really to get some cross-cultural exposure,” she said.
CityU engineering students served as ambassadors to the Columbia students, which Aguilar called “one of the better parts of the trip.” During their free time, the Columbia and CityU students explored the city together.
“Those were our contacts in Hong Kong on where we should go, what we should do on our own time … what life was like for those students in Hong Kong,” Aguilar said.
Brovman said in October that this “cultural exposure” would be an important part of the trip.
“Any academic program should also be grounded in a little bit of experience of the environment into which one is going,” she said.
Although Chen thought the trip was largely successful, he said there are ways the program could be improved. More discussion between Columbia and CityU faculty and administrators could make the trip “more closely [aligned] with the students’ education,” possibly by making it more focused on engineering, he said.
This “would make the program more relevant to the educational programs of the students,” he said.
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