Vision development in engineering education during financial crisis and natural disasters

Abstract

Risks are seeds of new opportunities. The year 2008 is heart-breaking to global nations. University undergraduates are ambitious, yet within a fortnight after their summer vacation, their sweet day dreams have turned into nightmares. Many youths may indeed become desperate. The University of Hong Kong realizes this impact to their engineering students. Making use of broadening education, the University utilizes recent case studies to make their engineering students observant and alert. The present economic downturn and non-ethical practices provide good lessons in building up maturity and morality in fresh engineers. In the business world, and history recalls, an end in a road is never a dead-end when there is a turn to another road. The one who finds this turn first shall master tomorrow. Hence we enhance students’ vision in exploring new business opportunities. We encourage the whole curriculum to make entry to entrepreneurship competition, and to enroll in visits to places devastated by natural disasters. Through critical thinking and “seeing is believing”, we develop algorithm and passion in these youths to serve the new society with a good heart either through entrepreneurship or engineering or their integration. Already we see maturity substantially in the batch.