Learning opportunities that open my eyes

I think I would be a different person today if I had not made good use of the learning opportunities at City University of Hong Kong.

 

As the external vice-president of the Asia-Pacific Student Entrepreneurship Society (ASES) Hong Kong Chapter—a joint university-student organization headquartered at StanfordUniversity with chapters all over the Asia-Pacific region—I have organized and participated in a range of activities which widened my horizons.

 

ASES sends delegates to an annual summit in Stanford every spring. Participants attend speeches given by famous entrepreneurs, visit companies in the Silicon Valley and discuss the development of ASES Global with delegates from other chapters.

 

I was one of the Hong Kong delegates this April, thanks to the Faculty of Business at CityU which gave me a full sponsorship and guided me to prepare for the country report of the recent development of our chapter. The lecture given by the founder of Sina.com and the visit to the Google offices in the Silicon Valley deepened my understanding of entrepreneurship and gave me new insight into how to develop society in the future. It was a great experience.

 

Besides joining the summit, I was also given chance to organize a joint symposium on “How to use credit cards wisely” with the Wall Street Journal Asia(WSJ) on 18 November, an event which attracted nearly 100 local university students.

 

This was the second of the Future Leadership Student Symposium series. The aim was to provide university students with an opportunity to complement academic theory with real-life business case studies. As the person-in-charge, I had to do all the preparations: from selecting a theme with WSJ to inviting speakers; from logistics to communicating with speakers and sponsors; from encouraging members to join to promoting the event in local universities.

 

The work was very challenging since I had to decide what I should do and how I should do it. The result was very encouraging as participants found the symposium useful and interesting. They picked up new knowledge about the importance of and rationale behind credit card online security. I learned a lot of new ideas which went beyond the textbook.

 

ASES is one of the many extra-curricular learning opportunities at CityU which have given me valuable experiences. I would definitely encourage all CityU students to grasp the chance and cherish their university life!