Enrollment

So, this will be a bit of a boring post for those of you not interested in actually attending CUHK, because this is all about enrollment and subjects and the agreements between Adelaide Uni and CUHK about exchange students etc etc etc.

Back in November (when we had a million other things to do) we also had to 'pre-enrol' in our prospective subjects. It basically guaranteed us a place in the subjects we wanted to take at CUHK, which was great and it gave me a sense of security. HOWEVER, having spent hours in the previous weeks planning a perfect timetable with a wonderful balance of subjects, we were told in the pre-enrollment email that there is a 'list' of subjects for exchange students to pre-enroll in - NOT ALL SUBJECTS were open to us for pre-enrollment. Unfortunately for me, Japanese Language and Korean Language were not on the list of classes available for pre-enrollment, and after sending an email to CUHK about it, they replied that my only option would be to wait until I arrived at the university and hope that there would be places available in the classes I wanted.

So that's what I did. I pre-enrolled in four courses (the minimum number of subjects the Humanities Dept. at Adelaide Uni allows for exchange students to CUHK), two of which I wanted to take - Semantics and Language Disorders - and two which I thought I might drop if I could enroll in the language courses.

The next issue that came up was to do with the number of subjects I would take. It seems every university has a different agreement with CUHK regarding how many units at CUHK corresponds to how many of their institutions units/credits. My friend from LaTrobe University in Melbourne is doing four subjects of 3 units (most non-law, non-specialist undergraduate courses at CUHK are 3 units), which equates to four subjects of 3 units  back at LaTrobe. Simple.
For REASONS UNKNOWN, Humanities and Social Sciences Dept at Adelaide Uni has decided that your average full-time, 12 unit semester is equivalent to 16 units at CUHK. That means taking SIX subjects at CUHK! Note that six is the maximum number of subjects any student at CUHK can enroll in in one semester. It is ridiculous because I find the workload for each subject here to be pretty much the same as at Adelaide. Where they pulled the 16 unit requirement from I have no idea. But after a week experiencing the workload for classes here, I sent an email to HUMSS arguing that five subjects (15 units) should suffice to be equivalent to full time study, and they agreed.

After chopping and changing subjects and trying to figure out which department back in Adelaide will give me credit for which subjects (that part still hasn't quite been worked out, but I hope to credit for a subject of generic HUMSS, two Linguistics subjects and an Asian Studies subject) the following is the list of subjects I am enrolled in and that I now cannot drop (as the add/drop period is over):

Language Disorders
Semantics
English as an L2
Korean II
IASP Senior Seminar

Japanese is a long story. Cut short. I was able to enroll in a Japanese class that I thought and that the Japanese teacher thought was appropriate for my level. The grammar and vocabulary was familiar, but they were expected to learn/know 50 kanji a week and speak every class - two skills which I thought would keep me very busy! After attending Japanese classes for two weeks and trying to finalise enrollment (there were pieces of paper involved, very low-tech)... it didn't happen. There was something to do with my grammar being too advanced for that class. There was something to do with the exam only being in Chinese (then why they offered classes where the medium of instruction was English is beyond me). Basically, it was all very weird and with different teachers signing different forms and not agreeing with each other, it is not an experience I want anyone else to go through.

Korean on the other hand was totally different. I went to the head of department's office, gave her the form for the class I though was my level, and she said 'Well, introduce yourself in Korean'. So I did. She said for me to review the chapters already covered in the textbook, and she signed the form. Done.

Classes - Week 1 Review

OK, week one classes: COMPLETE!

Once my classes can be finalised (not until next week when the Add/Drop period opens unfortunately) I will post about enrollment drama and HOW TO GET THROUGH ENROLLMENT AT CUHK WITHOUT PERMANENT SCARRING, but for now, I'll just give a run-down of the classes I'll most likely be enrolled in for the duration of the semester.

Linguistics

Language Disorders - Taught by Patrick Wong, this class looks like it will entail a lot of reading and a lot of learning (our textbook "Foundations of Communication: Sciences and Disorders" is nearly 900 pages), but therefore I think it will be extremely rewarding. Patrick has practiced as a neurologist and researcher in the field of Langauge Disorders, with both child and adult patients. From aphasia to cleft-palate to every-part-of-the-throat/tongue-being-cut-out-due-to-cancer-from-smoking, he has seen it all and, in the US, has taught it all. Now he is back in HK, continuing his research into why children with cochlear implants (which these days are near-perfect replacements of the human ear) do not develop normal language functions at the same rate as their hearing peers.

Acquisition of English as an L2 - Taught by Helen Zhao. We spent the first lecture talking about L1 acquisition and establishing some foundations about how a child learns their first language (and historical theories of this process i.e. Skinner and his rats, Chomsky etc). This course is actually offered by the English department, but future students DON'T BE FOOLED! There is a lot of linguistic theory to be learnt, and the course will also focus on research methods as to how L2 is acquired, and to what degree it is acquired in different people (due to motivation, aptitude, anxiety) etc. It will also focus on effective methods of teaching L2, English being the target language of L2, so in the class there are also many students whose major is English Teaching.

Semantics - Taught by Candice Cheung. Semantics will be tough, I can tell. Our first task that lesson was to unpack the semantics of the meaning of the word 'mean(s)'. Like "I know what you mean" as opposed to "smoke means fire" as opposed to "I mean to go to every lesson". Pretty intensive stuff.

Languages

Japanese - New Practical Japanese II. Well, it seems that the grammar is fine, but I have SO much kanji study to do...

Korean II - Oh dear. Oh dear. Some new words. Some new grammar. Now I actually have to start spelling things correctly! >_< But the teacher is brilliant, and he is very patient with our small class of 8 students.

Don't ask about Cantonese or Putonghua. I'll learn from my roommate and my new friends. Sorry brain, no holiday for you until June!