Bulletin Number One 1987

Profile of 1986 Freshmen The University admitted 1,379 undergraduates in September 1986. Surveys on the freshmen, including students of the Part-time Degree Programmes, were conducted by the Office of Student Affairs, and the response rate was 96.2%, 2.7% lower than that of the previous year. Freshmen o f the Full-time Programmes The overall male to female ratio among freshmen is 1:1.2; however, male students still form the majority in the Faculty of Medicine (85.7%) and the Faculty of Science (74.6%). The average age of the students is 18.5 years, which is similar to that of the previous year (18.4). The male and female averages are 18.8 and 18.2 respectively. Some 73% of the students pro fess no religious belief. The others are mainly Pro testants (19.2%) and Catholics (6.7%). Freshmen in general have had an active non- academic life before entering the University: 98.8% of them have participated in extracurricular activities at school, and 76.2% travelled outside Hong Kong. 6.4% of the freshmen have had the experience of full-time paid employment and about 58.1% the experience of summer work prior to entering univer sity. The majority of the freshmen indicated that they had confidence in adapting to university life. The areas in which they anticipated the greatest d iffi culties included: adaptation to the University's teaching method (33%), coping with the tutorials (25.7%), and understanding reading materials in English (25.4%). Some of the freshmen indicated that they were troubled, to various extents, by emo tional problems during the three months prior to entering the University. When faced with emotional problems, some 57% of the students would choose to talk and share their thoughts with their fellow- students or friends, 12.4% their siblings and 15% their parents. Those who choose to consult their teachers account for less than 1%, while 12% say they would keep the problems to themselves. The majority of the students indicated an interest in a variety of psychological counselling services, such as training in social skills (83.1%), in time organization (72.5%), in self-awareness (72.2%), and individual counselling (58.4%). The level of the educational attainment of the parents is considerably higher than that of the pre vious year. Some 19% of the fathers and 11.7% of the mothers have received education at tertiary level. There were 29.9% of the fathers and 21.7% of the mothers educated to secondary standard. Less than half of the parents have had only primary school education. As for parents' occupation, 17.2% of the fathers are semi-skilled workers, 15% of them are store-owners, 9.9% are professionals or in amanagerial position and 8.4% are skilled workers or technicians. A large majority of the mothers (58.7%) are house wives, while 17.5% of them are employed as semi skilled workers. The survey revealed that nearly 27% of the freshmen came from families with a monthly house hold income of $9,001 or above, and 27.1% in the range of $3,001 to $5,000. The average monthly household income per capita is $1,377. Close to 90% of the freshmen have to rely in varying degrees on their families for financial support. Some 51% of them also indicated that they have a need for Govern ment grants and loans. 36% of them plan to take up summer or part-time work to help provide for their education expenses. The majority of the freshmen (54.6%) live in Kowloon. About 23.6% of them live in the New Territories and 21.3% on Hong Kong Island. Less than half (43.5%) of the freshmen have their homes in public housing estates, representing a decrease of 3.1% when compared with the previous year's figure (46.6%). The average household size is 5.4 persons. The overall average living area per person is 7.3 square metres, which is slightly higher than that of the pre­ vious year. However, nearly half o f the freshmen (47.6%) have neither a private room nor a private desk of their own, which suggests that the study environment of the freshmen is quite disadvantageous. About 70% of the respondents express a strong need for campus accommodation. The reasons given by most of them include unfavourable living conditions at home and remoteness of home from campus. Some 97% of the students surveyed have chosen their major programmes out of an interest in the sub­ jects. Over three quarters of them believe that their chosen fields of study will lead to promising careers. Some 19.4% of the students suggested that family expectation had played a part in their choice of major subjects. About 95% o f the respondents hope to study a subject of interest in university. Some 88% also expect a university education to provide them with assistance in perfecting their characters. About 76% of the students place the emphasis on being able to acquire an all-round education. Most of the freshmen express a keen interest in extracurricular activities. Close to 90% suggest that they w ill participate in 18 RECENT DEVELOPMENTS