Our four-year undergraduate curriculum has been designed to prepare students with abilities/ attributes that will prepare graduates to become "preferred leaders" for the professions, and responsible global citizens in the 21st century. The main features of our curriculum can be grouped into two categories:
Preparing Students for Success in Their Chosen Professions
Nurturing Students into All-Round Global Citizens
I. Preparing Students for Success in Their Chosen Professions
Rigorous Application Orientation
All of our programmes are thoughtfully designed, meeting the needs of industries, the professions and the community, with an appropriate balance of theory and practice in the curriculum. Most of our academic programmes are accredited by relevant statutory or professional bodies, both local and overseas.
Strengthened Language and Communications Component
We aim to nurture our students to become effective communicators, both biliterate and trilingual (English and Chinese, including Putonghua). In addition to the English and Chinese language subjects in the core (General University Requirements) curriculum, extensive reading and writing components with adequate support from the teaching team are introduced to the general education programme and the discipline-specific curriculum.
Mandatory Work-Integrated Education (WIE)
All PolyU full-time undergraduate students will complete a mandatory WIE component to gain real-life experience in the actual workplace before graduation. This will enable our students to deepen their understanding of industries and professions, to apply classroom learning in real-life situation, and to develop their workplace skills.
Enrich Students' Experience with Industries and the Professions
With our strong and long-standing relationship with industries and the professions, we are able to organise many "out-of-classroom" learning activities (e.g. mentorship programme, talks by experts from various disciplines, site visits and study tours, industry-based student projects, etc.) that bring students closer to real-life professional practice. This relationship has also further stepped up collaboration between the University and industries in research, high-level consultancy projects and knowledge transfer activities which in turn support the application orientation of our academic programmes.
Capstone Project
We include, in all of our programmes, a capstone project or thesis to enable students to consolidate their learning experience accumulated over the entire undergraduate study to deal with or solve a complex problem related to their profession/discipline. This will better prepare our students for professional practice or further studies.
Developing Entrepreneurship, Innovation and Problem-Solving Skills
We place a strong emphasis on nurturing students' entrepreneurial and innovative spirit, as well as critical thinking and problem-solving abilities, and offer a wide range of curricular and co-curricular activities, e.g. PolyU Micro Fund Scheme and PolyU Innovation and Entrepreneurship Global Student Challenge, to help students develop these skills.
II. Nurturing Students into All-Round Global Citizens
Globally-Oriented Education
PolyU has long been committed to internationalisation of its curriculum, staffing and student bodies. We provide students with global learning experience through our established Student Exchange Programme, WIE Offshore Placement Scheme, and General University Requirements (Cluster Area Requirements and Service-Learning) subjects offered overseas and in Mainland China. In 2018/19, over 960 PolyU students went on exchange at one of PolyU’s 251 exchange partner institutions, and around 960 students from overseas countries and regions came to study at the University. In 2018/19, over 1,200 students participated in offshore internships worldwide and in the mainland.
Under PolyU's academic collaboration agreements with some 300 institutions spanning 45 countries and regions, our faculty and staff have been actively engaged in academic, joint degree and research collaboration initiatives. These further enhance the international exposure of our students and staff.
Broadening Students' Perspectives
We provide an enhanced general education programme to broaden students' horizons beyond their chosen professions. Students will study subjects of their own choice under four Cluster Areas that represent different domains of knowledge and methods of enquiry. They are:
Leadership and Intra-Personal Development
To prepare our students to become "leaders of tomorrow", we offer to all students a core general education subject on "Leadership and Intra-Personal Development". The subject is designed to enable them to:
Cultivating a Heart to Serve
We aim to develop our students into educated global citizens with a heart to serve. All our students will have to take a credit-bearing subject on Service-Learning so that they can apply their knowledge to serve the people in need. They will:
Promoting a Healthy Lifestyle
Healthy lifestyle is the platform for all-round development. Our students will complete a non-credit-bearing programme in healthy lifestyle. The programme will enable students to: