GE Programme & Courses
Programme Structure
General Education at HKBU
Our GE Programme provides students with a well-rounded university education, and is an integral part of the University’s commitment to help them achieve the HKBU Graduate Attributes (GAs). Our GE foregrounds the essential elements of Whole Person Education, such as integration of knowledge, acquisition of multiple perspectives, empathy and critical thinking, and aims to nurture our students to become responsible and responsive citizens.
The GE Programme is designed to equip students with integrated broad-based knowledge, transferable core skills, guiding principles, and attitudes that they need in both their specialized studies and future professional and personal lives. Our GE asks students to open up their minds to new ideas and perspectives, imagine possibilities, and acquire a deeper understanding of people and issues through making connections at personal, societal and historical levels. It cultivates our students to become well-rounded persons capable of fully participating in the fast-changing, interconnected global world.
Programme Structure
Under the undergraduate curriculum, students are required to complete a minimum of 128 units, with four broad categories, including the major programme, electives, the University Core requirements and the General Education (GE) Programme.
Our GE Programme enables students to make intellectual connections across different disciplines. All GE courses are interdisciplinary and designed according to their themes/categories and levels. After taking Level 1 Foundational Courses and Level 2 Interdisciplinary Thematic Courses, students will proceed to Level 3 GE Capstone which allows them to apply, in a structured way, their integrated knowledge culminated from interdisciplinary studies and peer learning to real-world issues.
After completing the GE Programme, students are expected to achieve a number of programme intended learning outcomes:
| PILO1 | Use historical and cultural perspectives to gain insight into the contemporary issues; |
| PILO2 | Apply various value systems to decision-making in personal, professional, and social/political situations; |
| PILO3 | Use data for the purposes of analyses and to make recommendations for strategic implementation of policy on social, economic and business, cultural, and political affairs; |
| PILO4 | Relate their majors with interdisciplinary thematic knowledge; |
| PILO5 | Demonstrate connections among a variety of disciplines to gain insight into contemporary personal, professional, and community situations. |
Structure and Category Aims
The GE Programme offers three levels of learning, from foundational courses to courses in themes, and a culminating capstone experience, for a total of 18 units. All courses and independent studies are interdisciplinary.
All students are required to take one 3-unit course in each of the following categories:
History and Civilization
Quantitative Reasoning
Values and the Meaning of Life
The interdisciplinary courses in this level enable students to:
- Use historical and cultural perspectives to gain insight into contemporary issues;
- Apply various value systems to decision-making in personal, professional, and social/political situations;
- Recognize the value and limitations in the quantitative data encountered in daily life, such as in the media or public reports, as well as to make use of quantitative data effectively to support sound reasoning.
Level 2: Interdisciplinary Thematic Courses
All students are required to take two 3-unit courses under any one or two of the following themes#:
Culture, Creativity and Innovation
Science, Technology and Society
Sustainable Communities
The interdisciplinary courses in this level enable students to:
- Relate their majors with interdisciplinary thematic knowledge and make connections among a variety of disciplines, so as to gain insight into a wide range of issues pertinent to contemporary personal, professional, and community situations;
- Promote HKBU’s ethos of Whole Person Education.
As a culminating capstone experience in the GE Programme, students are required to complete an interdisciplinary GE Capstone course or an interdisciplinary independent study, which will be in the format of:
Interdisciplinary GE Capstone Course
Courses with structured classes, syllabi, pedagogies and assessment methods, with a project as a key element. These include:
Service-Learning
Service Leadership Education
Experiential Learning
Interdisciplinary Independent Study
- Interdisciplinary group project under the supervision of a faculty member
- An individual interdisciplinary project of a student’s own choice under the supervision of a faculty member
- Both the group and individual projects can take the form of a thematic study or an experiential learning project.
The interdisciplinary GE Capstone courses and independent studies enable students to:
- Synthesize knowledge from various disciplines and to provide innovative solutions to solve a societal or global problem;
- Value the importance of working as a team for the common good;
- Show what has been learnt in the classroom and experiential environments can be applied to addressing an important issue faced by local, regional, and the global community.
Remarks:
* The course code of both GE Capstone Courses and Independent Studies start with “GCAP”. Students should refer to the course list for detailed information.
# Example: Students can choose two GTCU courses OR one GTCU plus one GTSC course to fulfil the 6-unit Level 2 requirement.