Please do NOT plan on leaving Hong Kong before the end date of the term in which you have taken classes as this may disable you from sitting for your final exams. Absence from final exam will result in loss of mark for your grade and thus most likely failure in the course. For the important dates in the Academic Year, please refer to HKUST website.
Those who do NOT have the right of abode in Hong Kong MUST obtain a student visa/entry permit issued by the Hong Kong Immigration Department in order to study in Hong Kong.
You will receive visa application guidelines and information after your exchange placement is confirmed. When your visa is approved and issued, HKUST will mail it to you before you depart for Hong Kong.
For more information, please refer to https://studyabroad.hkust.edu.hk/inbound/arrival/visa-health-and-insurance .
According to the university policy, all non-local students must have insurance coverage during their study at HKUST. The Scholarships and Financial Aid Office (SFAO) will provide you with further information. Please refer to SFAO website.
Information on on-campus accommodation can be found at the Student Housing and Residential Life Office (SHLO).
Given the limited supply of on-campus housing, PG exchange-in students are advised to arrange off-campus accommodation by themselves. The Off-Campus Housing Section of Student Housing Office provides general assistance for students who are looking for off-campus accommodation.
There will be two orientation sessions for UG students. The first one is organized by the University and is designed to help UG inbound exchange students get to know more about Hong Kong and the campus. Immediately following the University orientation is the Humanities and Social Science (HSS) orientation session, which is offered exclusively to exchange students joining the School. The School session will focus on academic information, such as course registration and selection, exam arrangements, grading system, etc. These orientation sessions are compulsory. Further details will be made available before the commencement of each term.
Separate PG orientation will also be arranged.
Course registration will be done upon arrival. You must have internet access in order to register for courses. You will receive email regarding the procedures to activate your own account for accessing the course registration system nearer the time.
Further details will be announced to students via school e-mail. Please watch out for e-mails from SHSS around that time. If there is any change in your e-mail address (i.e. different from the one that you put down on your application form for admission), please let us know by email as soon as possible.
When planning your study plan at HKUST, please pay attention to the following points:
The Academic Calendar is the official publication by HKUST listing all its approved courses. The updated Class Schedule is available online.
Please take some time to go through the course descriptions before deciding on the courses you are going to take. In particular, please pay attention to the prerequisite, which is specified in the last sentence of the description of a course in the Course Catalog. In all cases, students must meet the prerequisite specified for a course in order to enroll into it, e.g. by having completed a course similar to the prerequisite at their home university.
Not all the courses that you find in the Course Catalog are offered every term. To help you devise your study plan, you can find the Humanities (HUMA) and Social Science (SOSC) courses to be offered in at HUMA and SOSC websites respectively. Offer of non-HSS courses will be added to the web once available. But please note that the information is subject to revision by the offering departments without prior notice. The finalised course offer information and class timetable will be released by the University, and we will inform you of this by e-mail in due course.
Latest & previous course information please click below
- Division of Social Science Info here
- Division of Humanities Info here
- Center for Language Education Info here.
Exchange-in undergraduate (UG) students are expected to maintain a full-time study load with no less than 15 credits per term. As undergraduate students, you are required to request for approval (Cross-career) from the course instructors in order to enroll into postgraduates’ (PGs) courses (i.e. courses at 5000-level or above.) Further information on how to do this will be provided when we announce the course registration procedures and policies to you.
Exchange-in postgraduate (PG) students will be allowed more freedom in terms of the number of courses they can take. We strongly recommend you to consult in advance your advisors at both your home university and HKUST.
If you wish to work on research under the supervision of HKUST faculty, you must approach the professors on your own and work out the details of your research project. Please understand that research project work is NOT part of the exchange program.
Subject to availability of places and fulfilment of course prerequisites, you may enroll into other non-HSS courses outside the School of Humanities and Social Science, however student will not get priority/guaranteed enrollment into courses outside School of Humanities and Social Science. Successful course enrollment is subject to fulfillment of prerequisites, availability of seats and approval of the course instructor. For your easy reference, courses offered by the School of Humanities and Social Science are identified by the following prefixes in the course codes:
| Course Prefixes | Details |
|---|---|
| HUMA, SOSC, SHSS | Courses offered by the School of Humanities and Social Science. |
| SSMA, MGCS, MALS, MALE, HMMA | Courses in the School of Humanities and Social Science are earmarked for special programs (mostly self-financed PG programs). Students who are not enrolled in these special programs normally are not allowed to register for these courses. |
| ACCT, ECON, FINA, ISOM, MARK, MGMT | Due to availabilities and capacity reserved to HKUST business degree seeking students, students could attempt, but will not get priority/guaranteed enrollment to these course.
Business courses at postgraduate (PG) level (i.e. 5000-level or above) are reserved for special business programs and are closed to students who are not in the program. Therefore, exchange students admitted to the School of Humanities and Social Science should NOT plan on taking business courses at PG level. |
A small number of our Humanities (HUMA) courses and the Social Science (SOSC) courses require solid knowledge in the Chinese language, which are marked with [Pu] [C] or [Ca] [C] next to the course title found in the Course Catalog. For some courses marked with [C], instructors will provide alternative texts in English language. Meanwhile, you may refer to the course description in the Course Catalog and look for the signs [C], [Pu] [C] and [Ca] [C] for a preliminary indication.
Some exchange-in students may wish to learn some functional Chinese for daily communication. “Chinese language” in Hong Kong usually refers to either Cantonese (i.e. the local Chinese dialect spoken in Hong Kong), or Mandarin (i.e. Putonghua, which is the official language of the People’s Republic of China). There is a pair of courses on Mandarin that are designed for students who have no prior knowledge of the Chinese language at all. They are LANG1121 – LANG1127. Interested students can register for these courses on-line during official course registration period. Such courses carry credits and will appear on the HKUST transcripts. Please note that all other courses on Chinese language that you find in the University’s Course Catalog are intended for students who have already got a solid foundation in Chinese language, and are thus not suitable for beginners.
If you wish to learn some Cantonese or Mandarin Chinese without committing too much effort and time to the courses, you may consider subscribing to the fee-paying courses offered by the Center for Language Education. Details of these courses will be announced to all students at the beginning of a term. Students have to apply directly to the Center for Language Education and pay to the Center if they are accepted into these courses. These courses do not carry credits and will not appear on the HKUST transcripts. HKUST does not offer courses with credits on Cantonese. Therefore, students who would like to learn some Cantonese can subscribe to the fee-paying Cantonese classes offered by the Language Center. The procedures and policies are the same as the fee-paying Mandarin classes.
The vector [x-x-x:x] next to the course title indicates the lecture hours per week, tutorial hours per week, laboratory hours per week and the credit value of the course respectively.
Finally, to help you settle down and get familiarized with HKUST and Hong Kong promptly, the Office of Global Learning (OGL) is running a “Buddy Program” for all UG inbound exchange students. If you are interested in joining this program and getting a buddy, please contact OGL (study.abroad@ust.hk) for details.
To enable you to get a feel of the city of Hong Kong and a taste of its cultural heritage, the OGL annually organizes local tours for Undergraduate students at a reasonable cost.
Details will be announced in due course.