ISF: from the beginning (1/2)

ISF: from the beginning (1/2)

When I thought which programme I should study in university when I was in F.6, CUHK CS was at the first priority for a long time. My mind that I wanted to study computer was very clear in my head and I believed that my grades must enable me to get in CUHK CS. I even spent time on the college tours instead of academics on the open day of CUHK, clearly knowing that I wanted to get in.

As there were 25 slots in JUPAS, I must make up some programmes to fill in the remaining slots other than the Computer Science programmes in the top 3 universities. I read the catalogue, paying particular attention to the engineering section, and picked up lots of engineering programmes, like Computer Engineering, Electronic Engineering, and so on, completely ignoring things other than science and engineering.

Afterwards, before actually filling in the JUPAS form, I read and compared the syllabi in different universities and discovered that there were double-degree BEng/BBA options in both HKU Engineering and CUHK Computer Science. Although the options were irrelevant at the time of admission, they reminded me that I can try different things in university! I started considering the possibility of doing a double-degree instead of one degree only. (Although I had already noticed the dual-degree BEng/BBA programme in HKUST, the requirement of getting C in both languages refrained me from considering it seriously.)

When I read the catalogue again, I skimmed other parts of it, and discovered an interesting title: Bachelor of Business Administration (Information Systems). I had a great interest in the discipline of Information Systems, but after reading the syllabus, I initially feared that business might not suit me because I knew nothing about it. I thought of other plans, but none were better than the BBA(IS) programme in HKU in my opinion. Finally, with “jumping out of my comfort zone to try new things” in my mind, I put BBA(IS) at A1 in my priority list. With satisfactory grades and excellent performance in the interview, I finally got into the programme at A1. At that time, I hadn’t heard of the student life of BBA(IS) students yet and didn’t know the concept of ISF. The only ISA event I joined before was the interview talk.

On the registration day, I followed the instructions, went though the central registry, SU, then the faculty, BEA, BA, and finally ISA. The BEA booth seemed very strange to me, because it worked like a bank, calling numbers to the counters! However, things were completely different in ISA. I felt very comfortable when going through ISA, and the committee members were very friendly.

The only O-camp I joined was by ISA. The purpose was to meet and know more about my classmates. I didn’t want to join many O-camps, so I didn’t join the O-camps by BEA and BA because I didn’t think that they were useful as the people were from many curricula. Furthermore, the fact that there were two O-camps from both BEA and BA respectively, one for the old curriculum (3-year) and one for the new curriculum (4-year), seemed to me that there was a barrier between the old and the new curricula. However, students from both curricula joined the same ISA O-camp so that I could get to know all the freshmen, without any barriers between the curricula.

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