Teaching and Learning

We place high value on mentoring and we are proud that our departments’ mentoring programmes provide an important cornerstone for our students during their University experience. Our mentors come from all walks of life, and whether students are looking for career advice, feedback on entrepreneurial advice, or want someone to talk to, they will have mentors to talk matters through. Though the pandemic may lessen the opportunities for face-to-face meetings, mentors are having more interactions with our mentees online.

Some of the new developments on our Mentorship programmes:-

The IET-PolyU Mentorship Programme was established in 2021 by the Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering in collaboration with the Institution of Engineering and Technology. Senior executives from the Institution serve as mentors for students and also have organised industrial visits and a Symposium on Innovation and Technology, and also a contest “Capture the Flag Challenge”.

The Scheme developed by the Department of Electronic and Information Engineering aims to enhance the learning support provided for our higher diploma and undergraduate degree students, especially those who encounter problems in their academic studies, particularly in mathematics, physics, circuits and programming areas. Outstanding and academic excellent senior mentors from each undergraduate programme are invited to serve as mentors. It provides a mutual learning experience for both the senior and junior undergraduate students; learning by sharing.

Starting from 2019/20, COMP has collaborated with the Computing Alumni Association (CAA) to launch a mentorship programme which aims to enhance students’ holistic learning experience.

At the kick off ceremony this year, Dr Henry CHAN, Associate Professor and Associate Head (Partnership & Collaboration) delivered welcome remarks and thanked mentors for their contribution and support. Mr Darron SUN, President of CAA and the Mentorship Coordinator greeted all participants and briefly introduced the mentorship programme. One of our mentors, Mr Tony CHUNG, Senior Vice President of Data Services from Asia Satellite Telecommunications, was the invited speaker and gave a talk on “My Career Story”. At the end of his presentation, he summarised three important elements for career development: ‘dedication’, ‘enjoyment’ and ‘persistence’.

Mr Christopher Cheung and Mr Bosco LIN, representatives from BlackPine, also shared a range of career and internship opportunities with the participants. Various breakout rooms were arranged for both mentees and mentors to have in-depth group discussions.

Under the mentorship programme, each participating student is assigned to a mentor, and group activities with other mentors are also organised to promote cross-industry sharing. In other words, it offers reciprocal opportunities for mentees to know about workplace culture, business trends and prospects in established professions, widening their exposure to different career paths and options while at the same time allowing mentors to understand the career aspirations of the younger generation. Through mentor-mentee activities, we hope to encourage students to acquire skills in career planning and personal development, as well as broaden their social networks.

The mentorship programme established by the Department of Electrical Engineering has been running for many years. The Department has strong support from The Institute of Engineering and Technology Hong Kong (IET) and the Hong Kong Electric Company (HKE) through their active participation. The essence of the programme is to offer a platform for our students to look beyond the classroom and learn from mentors who provide valuable and professional advice and work experience. Through interactive sharing, students can learn, grow, experience and explore in the engineering field.

The joint mentorship programme emphasizes on exploring more opportunities for our students to ‘Learn’ and ‘Experience’.

Full-time teaching staff act as facilitators during their meetings. Through this role, progress can be monitored closely which is beneficial to both the mentors and mentees.

The Department also targets forming a Scheme to plan ahead all the activities that relate to the mentorship programme and to explore more MoUs with other large industrial institutes in order to create new teaching and learning opportunities for our students.

Due to COVID19, the Department has developed an online platform for linking up staff and students’ meeting appointments. They can choose to select whatever meeting formats they prefer. The new online system will facilitate all meeting records for information.

Project collaboration is an essential part of the engineering education in order to help students develop professional and technical communication skills, leadership skills, and conflict resolution skills. With the goal of offering interdisciplinary learning opportunities to the students, the Faculty launch its first ‘Interdepartmental Final Year Projects’ in 2021/22.

Leading by each FENG department, seven projects were arranged as listed below:

Each project is in principal participated by students from the 7 FENG departments and with a mix of local and non-local students. Students work in pairs under the direction and continuing guidance of a supervisory team. Students are expected to follow professional standards and to submit all the required project components. The teams would compete for the ‘Best Project Award’ as well as for the ‘Creative Project Award’ in which teams would be invited to create a three-minutes video about the inter-departmental Final Year Projects to explain why their final year projects are ‘creative and cool’, stakeholders would cast vote for the team. Following the Interim Presentation and Final Presentation cum Best Project Award Competition held on 20 December 2021 and 11 May 2022 respectively, the results are listed as follows:

Best Project Award

Champion

1^st Runner-up

2^nd Runner-up

Creative Project Award

PolyU E-Formula Racing Team has been working hard on preparing the 5^th generation race car (05E) for the FSEC 2022 competition despite the difficult circumstances posed by the pandemic in Hong Kong. During this difficult time, the accumulator (main battery) was manufactured and internal components are being fitted and tested. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations were also performed with the 05E aerodynamic kits. The condition of the 05E race car is becoming more promising and the team is looking forward to testing within the coming weeks.

In addition to preparing for the FSEC 2022 competition in November, PolyU E-Formula Racing Team is bringing up new recruits from this academic year by competing in the FSUK Concept Class 2022 competition with the help of the more experienced members of the team. Through this process, junior members will be able to learn the ropes of the Formula Student race cars and develop thorough understanding in their respective sub-systems.

The 6^th generation race car (06E) design will be entered in the FSUK Concept Class 2022 competition in the coming July. The team believes this arrangement will better prepare the 06E race car for the next season as feedback from the judges can be received to further improve the design. The testing performed on the 05E race car will also contribute to the development of 06E, allowing the team to understand the race car and strive for better results in both the dynamic and static events in the FSUK 2023 competition.