Statement of Purpose

As a regular, ordinary human being living in the modern society, in order to keep in touch with people and keep myself update on various issues, I check my emails everyday. As I go through my inbox and deleting dozens of daily junk mail, one of the emails catches my attention, the one titled “Last chance to apply for the EAP program for Fall 08!” I have always had a passion for traveling, since I believe that it is best to get the most out of life while I am still relatively young. The same is true in terms of how I look at my college experience; I would like to use as much of the resources provided by my school as possible. Although having my entire family living in Hong Kong had a huge influence in my decision in applying for Education Abroad Program; there are a few elements Hong Kong possess that reinsured my choice of choosing HKUST as the school I want to apply for.

I have experienced the different stages of education in Hong Kong; kindergarten, elementary school, and middle school. The impression I got from those years is that in the Hong Kong education system, the HKCEE test, which is taken by student at the end of his/her five-year secondary education, plays a devastating role in a student’s academic career. Majority of the students go to prep school ever since graduating from elementary school to prepare for the test. In my opinion, the students in the United States do not take the SAT as seriously as the Hong Kong students take the HKCEE. After studying in University of California, Santa Cruz for two years, I really want to experience college life in Hong Kong. It would be interesting to observe the difference between final products of two very diverse education systems.

The major I am the most interested in is the Business Economics major. I was originally born in mainland China, and my family moved to Hong Kong when I was three. The drastic change in the environment made me realize the powerful impact that economics can bring to a city. Although the village I was born in was not completely run-down and obsolete, the living conditions were far from modern. I was shocked upon moving to Hong Kong; being one of China’s most developed cities, as well as an international trading center, Hong Kong’s architecture and fashion trend seemed futuristic compared to the village I was born in. After some background research, I came to the conclusion that the single element that transformed Hong Kong from a tiny fishing port into the international financial market today was through the advances in economy.

In the past decade, Hong Kong’s economy had some serious fluctuation; from the post-1997, highly prosper economy to after 1997,