YOGAANNA'S BLOG: SENG Induction and First Day of Classes

Before I begin my narrative, for those who are wondering what is SENG, SENG is the abbreviation for School Of Engineering in HKUST. On the 31st of August, we, new engineering students of HKUST had our induction organised by our respective departments. Since I took Electronics Engineering, my induction was carried out by professors from the Dept. of Electronic and Computer Engineering. Induction is basically the introduction to your Bachelor's Degree course.

All of us were very excited and for me especially, I was both excited and nervous. I was nervous because of the confusion that was caused by the course registration process a few days earlier. Since it was the School of Engineering, we were given a cool free gift when we registered. The gift was a small, hand held fan. The best thing about it was the lights on it. The lights lighted up in a specific order so that designs were shown when the blades were spinning. The video is at the end of this narrative.

The agenda for the day was:

12.10pm - REGISTRATION

12.45pm - WELCOME SPEECH BY THE DEAN

1.00pm - SPEECH BY THE CO-CURRICULAR ACTIVITIES SUPERVISOR

1.15pm - ROBOTICS TEAM PRESENTATION

1.45pm - BEATBOX PERFORMANCE

2.00pm - DEPARTMENT INDUCTION

The programme was started by a small joke by the Dean. When the Dean was speaking, the microphone malfunctioned a little and he quoted "Being the School of Engineering, this should not have occurred". I was excited for the Robotics Team presentation but the excitement was cut short when they started presenting in Cantonese. I was grateful to know that the classes will be conducted in English and the Robotics Team is recruiting members.

Next up was the Beatbox performance. For those wondering what is Beatbox, Beat box is production of sounds made by different instruments especially drums by using one's voice. It was quite amazing to watch as he produced a lot of different sounds of music instruments with tune. One of the most amusing sound was the sound of a Chinese violin (exact name is unknown but it sounded a lot like a violin).

After about ten minutes break, at 2.00pm, we were told to go to our respective department inductions. We were given a short lecture on what to expect from our courses and another introduction to Robotics in English (relieved me of my worries).

On the 1^st of September 2011, my lectures started at 12.00 pm. The first class was Maths called Introduction to Linear Algebra (Code: MATH 2111). There were about 50 students in the class. The classroom fits the university’s name. It was again a high-tech classroom with various types of projectors and a camera to record the class for students who could not attend the class.

At 3.30 PM, it was time for my Introduction to Java (programming language) class. It was conducted in a lecture theatre. Here we had a system called Personal Response System. We were basically given a remote kind of device which had a number pad and an OK button. When a question is projected on the screen in front, we were told to press the number corresponding to the right answer. Two things were recorded in this case, our attendance and our answer. This helps the professors to evaluate our understanding of the lecture.

I am sorry that I could not get pictures of the classes since cameras are not allowed. Stay tuned for my next blog entry on Hong Kong City Tour with a lot more pictures this time. Got a few pictures of the library after the video. The picture quality may be bad since it was taken using a phone camera. The shutter rate of my camera could not match that of the blinking LED lights so there might jitters in the video.

The cool fan from School Of Engineering