Archery

Of the many miscellaneous thing I do in Hong Kong, one of the few that I do without waking up with a big headache and a guilty conscience is...archery.  The only differnce is that I actually score in archery. =)

Archery is one of the things you'd thought you'd never do growing up in Boston.  Truth be told I'd never expect to be shooting arrows a) in Hong Kong or b) on Valentine's Day.  

Oh don't get me started on Valentine's Day here, or should I say, "Single's Awareness Day" I went through the equivalent of the New York Times Square in Hong Kong and it's disgusting.  Couples everywhere holding hands, walking around with bouquets of flowers, wearing matching t-shirts...just get a room won't you!

Oh and the restaurants were all packed and my group of friends and I had to settle for an Indonesian Restaurant.  

Overall archery is the bomb, and Valentine's Day is only lukewarm. (but shooting arrows ON Valentine's Day is Legen....wait for it....DARY!!)

Happy Corner

I don't believe I have stressed enough how important hall life is here at HKU.  The hall identity is very strong and competition between halls in sports, debate, cultural clubs, etc. is fierce.  Residents of each hall proudly display their hall pride through a number of different avenues, most notably track jackets and trash talk.

I've been to floor dinners, played board games, have had floor soups, floor moral meetings, etc.  It's amazing how intertwined all the different aspects of residential life is in these halls.  It's almost like a freshman dorm (communal bathrooms), except the RA's have a very minimal role.  In fact PICs (or person in charge) are elected and performed the duties that are required of them, and most of the time its something that they would want to do. (so they would typically do a better job at it than an apathetic RA)

When is comes down to it the culture is much different, especially in terms of alcohol and drug use.  These kids have fun and goof off a lot, but know how to keep out of trouble.  People don't follow the rules word for word (there is no gambling or alcohol consumtion allowed at my hall) but people also don't throw up in a stairwell or blow smoke rings outside their windows only to be found and written up by RA's or CP.  

I gues what I'm trying to say is that it's different here but by no means any more tame.  Ladies and gentlemen "Exhibit A" i.e. "Hapy Corner"  

I got it on film Nikki...I got it on film. (SD card, same thing)

A comment for my Creativity and Business Innovation Class

What determines the success of an individual?  Wealth? Happiness? Fame? 

 

One blogger mentioned Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, interesting because he notes that neither have university degrees yet are both “the most famous and successful billionaires”.  One would think that individuals like Jobs and Gates are the boogiemen that keep University Presidents awake at night. 

 

Why?

 

Because they undermine, with their very existence, what every single University (colleges and private secondary schools too I’m sure!) promises to deliver: future success with the completion of their program.  Gates and Jobs are successful (or at least filthy rich) despite completing a degree program.

 

So are Jobs and Gates living proof that University degree are useless? NO!

 

University degrees are the great socio-economic discriminator of our time; this is ESPECIALLY true for degrees that land you a job.  Unfortunately applied degrees such as finance, accounting, engineering, or anything in the medical field will give you the greatest probability of securing a job even though they are usually degrees that foster the least creativity.  (Believe me, a creative surgeon is the last thing I would want to have.)

 

If you don’t believe me I’d like for you to personally ask ten of the above majors if they are employed (with what salary) a year after graduation.  Now compare this to ten inherently creative majors such as music, marketing, fine arts, etc. majors.  The difference should be astounding.  (but really this all goes back to what you consider “the success of an individual” i.e. happiness)

 

Now to be perfectly clear, I am not bashing these majors nor do I believe Prof. Farhoomand is suggesting  that we all be music majors.  I am simply trying to make the point that much of the companies and corporations in the world could in theory benefit from a more creative workforce, but will do fine (and have done fine) hiring people that just get the job done. 

 

Will an IT consulting company hire a US educated IT majoring student for $75,000 USD a year over a student over in India who is only asking for 400,000 rupees ($8,223.63 USD) a year because the US student is more CREATIVE? If this be the case, one wouldn’t have to worry about outsourcing.

 

(Source of Indian IT salary: http://www.payscale.com/research/IN/Job=Information_Technology_(IT)_Consultant/Salary )

 

In all honesty I don’t believe we need (all) accountants (number crunching), financial analysts (financial model crunching), or demolition engineers (concrete crunching) to be creative.  All that is required of them is to do what has worked in the past and to do it right. 

 

This isn’t to say none of them should be creative.  In fact it’s the creative and personable individuals that will probably advance further in their career, but can this creativity and personality be taught in a classroom setting?  And how on earth would you grade these individuals?  

 

I have a friend majoring in fine arts here at HKU.  He/ She tells me that all her teachers love her back at her home university and she get’s 4.0s on her paintings in her studio classes.  I asked her how she felt about that, she responded, “If you're getting good grades it’s like you're following their model of what is right and wrong”.  What is art but your own perspective of the world?  No matter how many rules it breaks art is art.

 

I wonder how Picaso would have fared in a classroom setting?

 

Despite all that I have just said, and all of whom I have just offended.  I do believe that a cross disciplinary approach in Universities (especially in Hong Kong) would be beneficial, but only to those that will be able to take advantage of it.  Some people just are not creative and don’t really care enough to try.  It’s hard work working long, boring hours in a work week, BUT it’s even HARDER work coming up with creative ideas that serve to get things done in a more efficient world-changing manner. 

 

You need creative individuals to come up with the ideas, but more likely than not you also need the typical University educated individuals to make the vision become reality.

 

Oh and to support the final point I would like all my fellow bloggers to look at the educational background of Tim Cook (runs all of the operations of Apple, basically without this guy, you’d hear about the how the iPhone came out today but actually be able to buy one 10 years later) and Kevin Turner of Microsoft.

 

Oh what the hey, here you go:

http://www.apple.com/pr/bios/cook.html

http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/exec/turner/

Star Hall

I'm going to start this blog off very slow.  I find my biggest problem with starting anything is trying to do too much to the point where I don't even want to execute it anymore.  It's come to my attention that this blog may be on my study abroad website, so here goes.

For future HKU exchange students: Starr Hall is by far the best dormitory.  Please make it your first choice, you can't go wrong.  The facilities are fairly new and very clean, and the hall life itself is very well knit and strong.  If you want to get involved in sports and other activites for your hall, this is the place to do it. 

Sarr Hall is infamous for being the hall with the largest proportion of international students.  There are by far more local (Hong Kong) students than exchange, but the fact still remains that many of the residents are quite used to seeing international students come and go.

And to go on that topic, what a trip it is to be an international student .  Really you have to experience it for youself to understand what I mean.  It's refreshing to meet people with such new and different perspectives as well as being the acutal one with the unique outlook.  

Hall life is is fantastic I'm going to be joining my floor's basketball team as well as hopefully representing my hall in tennis.  

Everyone here is also very friendly and very eager to help and get to know you, I mean that at HKU in general.  Perhaps it's the big school atmostphere (12,000 undergrads and 10,000 postgraduate) or maybe just the new environment (it's my first time in all of Asia), but I feel there is something special going on, and that I will fully enjoy my time here.  

The drinking age is 18, not that that's relavant at all. =P