No limits for student after Hong Kong exchange
A GCU Biomedical Science student has spent five months soaking up the culture and sights of Asia thanks to an exchange opportunity.
Third year student Amy Laing took the chance to spend Trimester B at Hong Kong Polytechnic University, where she had the chance to continue her degree in a new learning environment.
“There’s been a partnership in place for a long time between GCU and Hong Kong Polytechnic, but it’s been disrupted the last few years with the pandemic and the Hong Kong protests,” explained Amy.
“I’ve been working in the labs since I was 17 years old and wanted a new experience, so I applied to go. I’ve always wanted to move away and didn’t know if I would mentally be able to do it. This was only six months of my life, so it gave me the chance to go and experience living abroad without committing fully and being stuck.”
Amy left the comfort of her home in Balloch on the 3rd of January and made her way to Asia where she quickly found herself adapting to her new surroundings.
“It was still their winter when I arrived, but it was the type of weather we get in summer. The place is just incredible. There’s an amazing transport system, but the overall culture is so welcoming. It wasn’t that busy to begin with because the borders between Hong Kong and China were shut due to COVID. China opened their borders just before I left, so it did end up very busy.”
“Hong Kong has five or six different universities in, and they all accept international students, so there’s a big international student environment. If you’re going clubbing or anything like that then you always find international students, which was really good for making connections with people from all over.”
Amy added: “I’ve always been good at throwing myself into the deep end and figuring out who my friends would be. It was slightly intimidating because everyone else seemed to know someone, whereas it was just me travelling over there. I stayed in the university’s halls of residence, so I had my roommate from England, which really helped.”
As well as developing new friendships, Hong Kong Polytechnic University also gave Amy the chance to experience everything the city and surrounding area has to offer – both culturally and academically.
She explained: “The university was slightly bigger than GCU but nowhere near the size of The University of Glasgow. Some of the universities over there you need to get a bus from one side of the campus to the other – or you could walk two hours! The campus I was at was lovely. It was very modern and there were loads of amazing food places.
“The university also had exchange events where everyone was invited, including a ‘Hong Kong Style Barbeque’. We also got to go hiking and visit reservoirs, and even got the chance to learn conversational Cantonese before being encouraged to go and order food from local restaurants.”
Amy added: “The actual coursework was similar to what I do at GCU and continued with what I’d been learning. I was in class on a Tuesday morning, Wednesday morning, Thursday morning and Friday afternoon. It meant I had more time at the weekends since I was off on a Monday.”
Amy put her free time to good use and decided to experience various parts of Asia as a solo traveler.
“I wanted to try and step out my comfort zone further and just make the most of the exchange,” she explained.
“I hadn’t done any solo travelling before, and it meant I had to make friends in hostels and go out for dinner myself. There were so many cheap flights, so I was able to go to whole load of different places like Macau, Singapore, Phuket, Bangkok, Hanoi, Kuala Lumpur and Bali.”
“I feel I’m more adaptive to other people’s cultures and beliefs as a result. You’re basically thrown in and have to fit into the way they live. In Scotland, we can walk about wearing whatever we want but when you’re in these places you need to respect the way they do things.”
The overall experience has helped Amy realise she could work abroad in future and that there is nothing holding her back when it comes to her career as a biomedical scientist.
She said: “It’s now not just a hope and a wish that I can move away. I managed five months before I started to get homesick, so I now know I can do it. My friend had a baby before I left and I just wanted to be home because I missed everyone, but if I’d moved away fully and knew I wasn’t coming home, then it would just have been a continuation of me living my life.
“It’s made me realise that life isn’t just in Scotland. I feel like I can just do anything. If someone was to ask me to go down to England to cover a shift or work abroad then I would be able to do it – there are no limits now.”
Find out more about the BSc (Hons) Applied Biomedical Science programme here
By Ross Clark
Got an SHLS or GSBS story? Email me at Ross.Clark@gcu.ac.uk or message me on Twitter