Programmes

Undergraduate Curriculum

The Credit Unit System

What's good about our four-year (normative) curriculum?
The curriculum is built on a credit unit system, with flexibility and choices both in the selection of courses and in the sequence and pace of electives.
How does it work?
Within the credit-unit system, students are categorized into year-levels based on their year of attendance (that is, a new student enters the University as a Year 1 student) at the University for administrative purposes. However, a student's "year" does not indicate the actual stage of completion of his/her studies. This means that students may, based on individual circumstances and interest, tailor the progress of their studies.
Outcome
Students who complete the required number of course units, and satisfy the graduation requirements of the major programme and of the University, will be considered for the award of a Bachelor's degree.

The University's Bachelor's degrees are classified as follows:
· First Class Honours
· Second Class Honours Upper Division
· Second Class Honours Lower Division
· Third Class Honours
· Pass

Degree classification is based on the students' grade point averages for Major courses and for all other courses.

Curriculum Design

Duration and general structure
With the exception of a few special programmes, the normative period of study is four years, and students have to complete 123 units and satisfy requirements under separate categories. The overall curriculum structure is as follows:
· Major (including Faculty Package): 51–72 units*
· Minor (optional): 18–30 units
· Language - Chinese language: 5 units
· Language - English language: 8 units
· General Education: 19 units
· Understanding China: 1 unit
· Hong Kong in the Wider Constitutional Order: 1 unit
· Digital Literacy and Computational Thinking: 3 units
· Physical Education: 2 units
· Free electives: Remaining units
· Total: 123 units

*For some professional programmes and programmes of more than 4 years' normative period of study, the maximum exceeds 72.

University Core
A University Core encourages students to pursue not only a specialized or professional discipline, but also to gain an educational experience that will serve to enhance their capacity for life-long learning and competitiveness in the working life. The core skills and knowledge, comprising numeracy, critical thinking skills and digital literacy, as well as a high level of proficiency in Chinese and English, are developed through courses under the headings of Languages, Digital Literacy and Computational Thinking, General Education, Physical Education, Understanding China and Hong Kong in the Wider Constitutional Order.
- Languages
  To ensure that students graduate with a high level of bilingual proficiency, students are required to fulfill the language requirements of 5 credit units in Chinese and 8 credit units in English.
- General Education
  The General Education programme, applicable to students in all programmes, comprises three components:7 units under University General Education, 6 units under College General Education, and two General Education Foundation Courses totaling 6 units.
- Understanding China
  Students are required to complete a one-unit online course which brings together several perspectives on China in addressing the following topics: cultural and intellectual roots, epochal events in history, modernisation and social change, economic development, and science and technology.
- Hong Kong in the Wider Constitutional Order
  Students are required to complete a one-unit online course which views the overall development of Hong Kong from the perspectives of the nation and the wider constitutional order in China.
- Digital Literacy and Computational Thinking
  Students are required to complete a 3-unit Digital Literacy and Computational Thinking course covering basic information technology concepts and skills, simple data processing and computational thinking techniques. The course also introduces basic statistics and data science concepts.
- Physical Education
  The Physical Education programme equips students with sports skills and enhances students' physical fitness, and cultivates students' generic skills and desirable personal attributes, so that they can attain a whole-person development. The 2-unit Physical Education requirement is to be satisfied by choosing two different term courses from a comprehensive offering of sports items.

Major Programme
Through the Major Programme in the subject of choice, each student gains specialized knowledge in a chosen discipline, to a level that enables the graduate to pursue relevant careers or postgraduate studies. The depth and focus of study is also an opportunity to develop high-level academic skills. The new curriculum with an extra year has allowed the systematic inclusion of a capstone course in every Major Programme that provides the opportunity for research and/or internship, or final-year project that can lead to a dissertation.
Faculty Packages
To encourage students to gain exposure to knowledge outside their Major discipline, each Faculty, except the Faculty of Law which offers only one Major Programme, will provide a Faculty Package: this allows students to take courses normally worth up to 9 credit units outside their Major but within the Faculty, thus broadening their knowledge beyond their chosen fields of specialization. Credit units thus earned will count towards students’ Major Requirements.
Minor Programme
In the new curriculum, a coherent collection of 18 to 30 units in a discipline can constitute a Minor, and students can take up to two Minors according to their interest and orientation.
Double Major
Major Programme is a Capstone course or experience, in the form of research, internship or other learning activity that helps students synthesize their learning. Students may elect one or even two Minor Programmes, or even take a Double Major. There is also the opportunity to pursue a Double Degree.