Undergraduate Courses 2016-17

This course is offered under the program of the HKUST Summer Institute for Secondary School Students by the School of Science. The course aims at introducing the richness of diversity of living organisms around the world and their conservation programs. Local and global case studies will be used to illustrate the concepts. Course activities include lectures, field trip, and students’ project presentations. At the end of the course, students are expected to enhance their appreciation on our nature.

This course is offered under the program of the HKUST Summer Institute for Secondary School Students by the School of Science. Starting with fundamental chemistry concepts, this course intends to inspire students to appreciate how chemistry benefits our society. This course has both lecture and laboratory components covering topics of applications of chemistry to environmental and materials science and medicine.

This course is offered under the program of the HKUST Summer Institute for Secondary School Students by the School of Science. This course is a brief introduction of Game Theory. It intends to give a glimpse of some basic concepts in game theory. Students will be taught how interaction of players be modeled in precise mathematics, and solve the corresponding mathematical problems. Topics include: combinational game; games in extensive form; two-person general-sum games; games in coalition form; ordinal matching game.

This course is offered under the program of the HKUST Summer Institute for Secondary School Students by the School of Science. Calculus is an important mathematical subject with fascinating applications in a wide range of disciplines. This course aims at providing a general perspective on Calculus for students interested in mathematics. The fundamental ideas and concepts in Calculus discussed in this course include the following: challenging problems in the historical development of Calculus, concepts of functions and limits, derivatives and the shapes of graphs, areas and integration, anti-derivatives and the Fundamental Theorem of Calculus, and interesting applications of Calculus in problem solving.

This course is offered under the program of the HKUST Summer Institute for Secondary School Students by the School of Science. This course discusses many examples where simple and basic physics theories are used to understand everyday phenomena. Topics include inertia, formation of typhoons, tidal force and tides, energy crisis, greenhouse effect, sound waves and the physics of hearing, light waves and the physics of vision, formation of rainbows, etc.

This course is offered under the program of the HKUST Summer Institute for Secondary School Students by the School of Engineering. This course provides students with a background in digital media (including speech, audio, image and video) and multimedia applications. Topics include digital media fundamentals and authoring issues. Hands-on laboratories are designed to introduce students to media editing tools such as Adobe Audition, Photoshop, and Premier, and a taste of media design.

This course is offered under the program of the HKUST Summer Institute for Secondary School Students by the School of Engineering. This laboratory-based course introduces students to the fundamentals of a robot. The course will help to answer the following questions: How does a robot sense its surroundings? How does a robot acquire its power? How does a robot control its motion? And how does a robot think? Students will learn how to design a robot through a step-by-step design laboratory.

This course is offered under the program of the HKUST Summer Institute for Secondary School Students by the School of Engineering. Aiming at encouraging students’ interest in engineering, this course is designed to illustrate the interesting link between science, technology, engineering and mathematics. Students will work in teams or individually and improve their knowledge of technology through fun and enlightening activities. Throughout the lectures, students will explore some fundamental engineering technologies including sound generation, color detection, temperature detection and distance measurement. They will further extend their high-school Mathematics knowledge into advanced technologies and their applications. Applications on motion sensing remote control robot, human motion sensing, hand gesture detection, face detection and recognition are examined with hands-on practice.

This course is offered under the program of the HKUST Summer Institute for Secondary School Students by the School of Engineering. This course will try to connect engineering ideas with daily life by applying engineering techniques to solving problems and explaining phenomena that everyone, engineers or not, may encounter every day. Using engineering techniques, such as optimization, probability and statistics, the course will go over some interesting problems encountered in daily lives. Possible topics may include, e.g., How to maximize your chances of finding the best boyfriend/girlfriend? Why do buses come in pairs? Which line to choose at the supermarket check-out? Why is selling cocktail drinks/fruit punch better than selling pure juices? Why is the iPhone so successful? How to select the best elevators on UST campus?

This course is offered under the program of the HKUST Summer Institute for Secondary School Students by the School of Engineering. The course will give students an experience in building multimedia projects for the web. Areas covered include audio, image, web page design, and web page programming. This course takes a “hands on” approach, with the majority of the course to be held in a computer lab.

This course is offered under the program of the HKUST Summer Institute for Secondary School Students by the School of Engineering. This course will explore, without mathematics, the development of various types of great and monumental structures that have been built for economic, social or religious purposes. The structures considered will be from the pyramids to cathedrals, to the tallest buildings and longest span bridges. The functional requirements of these structures, as well as the important relationship between the properties and development of construction materials and the knowledge of structural behavior, that make the construction of monumental structures possible, will be considered.

This course is offered under the program of the HKUST Summer Institute for Secondary School Students by the School of Engineering. The objective of this course is to provide an opportunity for secondary school students to have a taste of tertiary environmental education and to raise interest in the environmental profession. The course will introduce technologies that provide tools and solutions to environmental issues that affect our water, air, land, eco-systems, living environment, and sustainable development.

This course is offered under the program of the HKUST Summer Institute for Secondary School Students by the School of Engineering. Electric vehicle (EV) is the rage now, due to the fossil fuel crisis and the increasing environmental concern. In this course, students will learn the basics of an EV: the working principle, the steering system, the power transmission, the braking system, and the frame design. In addition, the comparison between a traditional 4-stroke engine vehicle and an EV – particularly in their effect on environmental issues like pollution, in logistics issues (such as gas station and battery storage and recharge), in people’s social behavior, etc. – will be illustrated and discussed. Examples or demonstrations/labs will be conducted to teach how powerful engineering theories and techniques (particularly mechanical engineering, such as finite element method, computer-aided design, etc.) are used in the design and engineering of an EV.

This course is offered under the program of the HKUST Summer Institute for Secondary School Students by the School of Engineering. The course covers the use of renewable energy in intelligent buildings, typical for LED lighting. It will detail the design and implementation of energy conversion and distribution systems using the latest technologies. It also demonstrates the use of Hong Kong inventions and design in such system. The course will cover the use of design software and assembly of components of the system. The course covers: Wind turbine design and fabrication, site selection; Power generation and energy storage system using battery; Direct Current (DC) power distribution network; Light Emitting Diode (LED) lighting system; overall system design for renewable energy powered intelligent building.

This course is offered under the program of the HKUST Summer Institute for Secondary School Students by the School of Engineering. The course will focus on the impact of Engineering discipline on the environment and will focus on the contributions from each of the Engineering disciplines: (1) Biochemical, (2) Chemical, (3) Civil, (4) Computer/Information Technology, (5) Electronic, (6) Logistic and Manufacturing and (7) Mechanical Engineering.

This course is offered under the program of the HKUST Summer Institute for Secondary School Students by the School of Engineering. The course uses lectures, labs and videos to introduce the basic fluid flow process (waves, turbulence and mixing) and the fundamental principles that govern them. The processes of waves, turbulence and mixing will be taught mainly through experiments and flow visualization. Then the lectures will focus on illustrating how these processes are the essential ingredients for natural and engineered phenomena systems by selecting two to three examples from the following list: tsunami, tides, floods, surges, costal processes, typhoons, pulses in conduits and arterial systems, clean energy from wind and water, hydraulic structures such as dams, water supply and drainage, water and air pollution, aerodynamics, weather and climate, etc. The experiments and visualization will be conducted in the hydraulics lab, and wind tunnel facility. Students will also be taken to the water front to look at waves and surges with the "new lenses" given to them in the course.

The course will give students hands-on experience in developing interesting Android applications. No previous experience in programming is needed, and the course is suitable for students with any level of computing experience. The MIT App Inventor will be used in the course. It is a blocks-based programming tool that allows everyone, even novices, to start programming and build fully functional apps for Android devices. Students are encouraged to bring their own Android devices for hands-on testing and exploitation.

This short course will teach students some fundamental theories and technologies in computer-aided design and manufacturing. After taking this course, students will have a basic understanding of how today a product such as i-phone6's frame is designed on a computer and how it is machined on a numerical controlled (NC) machine. The teaching will be centered on hands-on labs: after an initial introduction of basic theories, students will learn how to use a commercial CAD software to design a product such as i-phone6's frame, how to write a NC program for machining it, and finally physically operate a 5-axis NC machine tool to execute the NC program to machine it.

The course is offered under the program of the HKUST Summer Institute for Secondary School Students by the School of Engineering. The main objective of the course is to encourage students to develop their own project idea and/or extend their knowledge and skills to design engineering related product, i.e. solar car. Various fundamental knowledge, including configuration of the solar car, battery and its performance, motor and its application, fundamental of design and manufacturing in mechanical system, as well as solar panel and thin film will be covered. Students will be given an opportunity to design and build a solar car in small scale through laboratory sessions. They will work in teams, preferably with teammates across different schools to identify the needs for their proposed idea, thereby developing their problem-solving, communication, interpersonal and project management skills via this entire experiential learning approach.

This course is offered under the program of the HKUST Summer Institute for Secondary School Students by the School of Engineering. The objective of this course is to provide an opportunity for secondary school students to understand our solid waste problems and engineering approaches to turn solid waste into valuable resource, renewable energy and environmental business. It intends to give our students some basic concepts of solid waste management and environmental sustainable development.

This course is offered under the program of the HKUST Summer Institute for Secondary School Students by the School of Business and Management. Accounting is the language of business. In this course, students will learn how to “speak” and “read” this new language. The course is designed to provide an overview of financial accounting so that, upon completion of the course, students will be able to read, interpret and analyze financial reports.

This course is offered under the program of the HKUST Summer Institute for Secondary School Students by the School of Business and Management. This course describes what information systems are and how they are used in organizations to create business innovations. Topics include how organizations harness technology for innovative business strategies in the context of e-commerce, business intelligence, information management and security. The course will also discuss the social-economic impact of technology on individuals, societies, and organizations. Class participation is highly encouraged.

This course is offered under the program of the HKUST Summer Institute for Secondary School Students by the School of Business and Management. The course covers some basic concepts of price theory, which is the foundation of modern economics. The theory will be used to explain a large number of real-world phenomena.

This course is offered under the program of the HKUST Summer Institute for Secondary School Students by the School of Business and Management. We are all consumers, and we live in a world that is full of marketing. Indeed, marketing is how companies interact with consumers. As consumers, we already know something about marketing, but there’s a lot more to it than first meets the eye. This course offers an introduction to the decisions that marketers make and the tools that they use to support an effective marketing strategy. By the end of the course, students should have a basic but complete understanding of the real world of marketing, and the ability to assess a marketing strategy for a product or service from organizational, consumer, and societal viewpoints.

This course is offered under the program of the HKUST Summer Institute for Secondary School Students by the School of Business and Management. This course helps students develop better analytical and decision making skills in approaching practical and important daily life issues, without the use of any advanced knowledge in mathematics and statistics. Students will derive solutions or conclusions that require critical thinking, creativity, quantitative analysis, and common sense. In this short course, students will also learn to apply different decision analysis concepts and tools in a selected set of interesting problems with greater confidence.

This course is offered under the program of the HKUST Summer Institute for Secondary School Students by the School of Business and Management. This course introduces the students, who have a very limited or no prior knowledge of business management, to the core principles and processes that are fundamental to managing business operations. In this short course, students will gain a better understanding of why and how efficient and effective operations are central to creating a sustainable competitive advantage for a business.

This course is offered under the program of the HKUST Summer Institute for Secondary School Students by the School of Business and Management. This is an introductory course that provides students with the knowledge about how to manage. What does it take an organization to outperform its competitors? What makes people effective at their jobs? What motivates people? How do organizations monitor their performance? These are some questions we will explore in this course. Based on the core functions of a manager, namely, planning, organizing, leading and controlling, this course investigates topics such as strategy, organizational structure, motivation and management controls.

This course is offered under the program of the HKUST Summer Institute for Secondary School Students by the School of Business and Management. This course aims to introduce to senior secondary school students some of the major concepts and aspects of finance that they may come across in daily life. Such will enable students to understand the scope of different finance functions, and to appreciate how each of those functions may contribute to economic development. The topics to be covered in this course will not follow those of mainstream finance course at introductory level. The idea is to arouse students’ interest and awareness towards finance, instead of equipping them with the full knowledge.

This course is offered under the program of the HKUST Summer Institute for Secondary School Students by the School of Business and Management. This course provides an overview of social media platforms and basic concepts of electronic commerce. It introduces the vast potential of social media in business promotion and communications. A commercial eMarketing software will be used to illustrate online promotion and response tracking. This course has both lecture and laboratory components.

This course is offered under the program of the HKUST Summer Institute for Secondary Students by the School of Business and Management. It aims to introduce to students the basic concepts of statistics and how they can be used to analyze business and social issues. Specifically, students will learn probability, statistical inference, experiment design, and survey research in the course. Emphasis will focus on statistical reasoning in real business and societal settings. Students will be given data sets to develop arguments and to draw conclusions based on statistical analysis. Excel will be used throughout the course as the tool of analysis. The objective of the course is to arouse students' interest in a logical and empirical approach in solving real-life problems.

This course is offered under the program of the HKUST Summer Institute for Secondary School Students by the School of Humanities and Social Science. Throughout history, human beings have constructed buildings that were seen as wonders of creation. While their designers and powerful empires behind these ambitious projects have long vanished, these buildings have survived the test of time. This course aims at going through a few examples of the masterpieces of Western architecture and the background of their creation through lecturing, video screening, and group discussion.

This course is offered under the program of the HKUST Summer Institute for Secondary School Students by the School of Humanities and Social Science. This course aims to unveil some of the most neglected, but important, aspects of Chinese culture and society in the modern period. Topics include the social and cultural meanings and functions of violence, gambling, opium smoking, the other side of some Chinese national heroes, etc.

This course is offered under the program of the HKUST Summer Institute for Secondary School Students by the School of Humanities and Social Science. The course will introduce challenges of adjustment individuals face during their transition to adulthood from a psychological perspective. Topics may include self-concept, personality, emotion, stress and coping, and interpersonal relationships.

This course is offered under the program of the HKUST Summer Institute for Secondary School Students by the School of Humanities and Social Science. This course will cover the following: (1) Introduction to humanistic perspective; (2) Human nature and leadership – The Analects of Confucius; (3) Survival of the fittest – Evolution and Ethics by Thomas Huxley; (4) The Invisible Hand – The Wealth of Nation by Adam Smith; (5) Equality as a dream – “The Communist Manifesto” by Karl Marx and “I have a dream” by Martin Luther King, Jr.; (6) The rightful leadership – International Covenant of Economics, Social and Cultural Rights; and (7) Humanistic leadership.

This course is offered under the program of the HKUST Summer Institute for Secondary School Students by the School of Humanities and Social Science. This course provides an overview about different types of musical theatre works, such as opera, operetta and musical. This course will also employ “hands-on” approach, with training in singing, acting and movement. A mini-performance of a musical piece may be arranged, if situation allows.

This course is offered under the program of the HKUST Summer Institute for Secondary School Students by the School of Humanities and Social Science. The course will help students appreciate how sociology can help us understand ourselves and the society in which we live. How do we study other people? How are we influenced by those around us? Why do people break rules? Why is there so much inequality in Hong Kong? How is family life changing in Hong Kong?

This course is offered under the program of the HKUST Summer Institute for Secondary School Students by the School of Humanities and Social Science. This course explores the rich, contemporary history of Canto-Pop from the perspective of the musicians, songwriters, and dancers who have made the art form so popular. By describing the story of Canto-Pop legends of yesterday and today, this course will delve into story of this movement which is part of Hong Kong and world culture. Prior music training, albeit helpful, is not required.

This course is offered under the program of the HKUST Summer Institute for Secondary School Students by the School of Humanities and Social Science. This course explores the relationship between music and film, delving into the historical development of production and the dramatic function of film scores from mainstream to independent cinema. Focusing on the work of American and European composers and film directors, the course will emphasize the collaborative creative process between these artists to achieve these goals. Prior knowledge of music and film, albeit helpful, is not required.

This course is offered under the program of the HKUST Summer Institute for Secondary School Students by the School of Humanities and Social Science. Although not all music demands a written form, many musical styles could not have developed in the way they did without music notation. This course introduces students to the reading and writing of music scores through the study of standard musical notation signs and terms, as well as elementary harmonic notions. The course will cover up to ABRSM Grade 5. However, prior knowledge of music is not required.

This course is offered under the program of the HKUST Summer Institute for Secondary School Students by the School of Humanities and Social Science. Innovation has become a well-known term and can be commonly observed being used in everyday parlance. But what exactly is innovation? Why is it important? How is it possible to innovate? What benefits are there from innovating? Answers to these questions and more will be explored in this course. By the end of the course students will have a deeper understanding of what is meant by innovation and the role that it plays in society.

This course is offered under the program of the HKUST Summer Institute for Secondary School Students by the School of Humanities and Social Science. Our life has been greatly improved by advances in science and technology, which are gradually being regarded as a proper (and sometimes the only) way to solve problems. But such advances have also raised critical issues, many of which have adverse effects on our health. In this course, students will examine the appearance of health issues as a result of technological 'advances', and what their solutions have been. It will also examine major health problems that have had a great impact on our community and their causes; and the place of science and technology in dealing with related problems. The role of technology in maintaining good public health and handing possible public health crises are also explored. Finally, this course seeks to develop students' ability to evaluate public health issues from different perspectives, taking into account scientific, historical, moral, social, ethical and cultural factors.

This course is offered under the program of the HKUST Summer Institute for Secondary School Students by the Interdisciplinary Programs Office. Environmental problems force businesses to look at their impact on the planet. Some businesses worry about added costs of going green. Other businesses are finding ways to make money in new green businesses, sometimes lots of money. This course will look at where problems come from, how specific businesses react, especially in China, and how problems can also be seen as opportunities.