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Undergraduate FAQ
The quickest way to tell the difference between Geography and Urban Governance Major programme is by the programme objective and learning outcomes.
The geography programme offers a series of well-structured and contemporary courses for students with a passion to contribute to the society in general, to equip them with the key elements of the knowledge and methods skills to meet the demands and challenges in this dynamic and ever-changing world, while the urban governance programme targets at students who are prepared to pursue careers in the fields of urban governance, urban development, urban planning, urban environmental management and transport policy and planning.
Geography Major students are welcome to explore the geography discipline based on your own interests and your choice of specific subfields, while Urban Governance Major students are free to specialize within one theme or select courses from difference themes in our designated programme structure – in which courses are grouped under three major themes including 1. urban planning & transport management, 2. sustainability & development, and 3. urban economy & society.
It depends on which faculty you are from.
For Social Science students, you might choose single major in Geography or double major in Geography/ Urban Governance. You might consider the following options to become a geographer:
For non-Social Science students, you could choose double major in Geography/ Urban Governance. You might declare either Geography (96 credits) or Urban Governance (72 credits) as your second major with another discipline offered by your home Faculty as your first major.
No, but we encourage students to start our major programme in Year 2 to spread your courses around the semesters, so studying will be more productive.
MBBS students can select our geography/urban governance minor programme(s), while Nursing, Chinese medicine, Pharmacy and Biomedical science students can take geography courses as free electives. Students might check with your home Faculty for further advice/ approval.
As always, we encourage students to take more geography courses as an important enhancement to the studies in your home Faculty.
Geography plays a key part in the public health and human services too to understand the spatial spread of disease and its relationships with the built environment in cities. This year, we continue to offer GEOG2152 Health and Medical Geography (6 credits) introducing students to the history, theories and methods of the Health and Medical Geography subfield. Also, our department offers GEOG2169 Geography and Global Health (6 credits)
Also, taking the recent COVID-19 pandemic as an example, GIS mapping is commonly used to trace the disease outbreak, to visualize the spatial trend of confirmed cases at district, city, national and cross-national geographical level, and to analyse the spatial relationship in order to generate location-based insights and drive decision making. If you want to make maps with spatial data using cutting-edge technology, our method courses GEOG2090 Introduction to Geographic Information Systems (6 credits) and GEOG2157 Open-source GIS (6 credits) would provide students a basic understanding of the concepts and techniques of GIS and their application to solve spatial problems that affect our society. Last but not least, we also offer GEOG3417 Health, Wellbeing, Place and GIS (6 credits) this academic year.
We hope that you would find our geography courses stimulating and cater to your education needs. Students can also tailor their geography course choices to accommodate individual interests.
Yes, you can declare your minor via SIS. Students are advised to create your own study plan based on your interests, strengths, education needs and goals. Including a minor (or minors) as part of your degree provides additional knowledge or skills.
Here are some tips for progress tracking in fulfilling the minimum requirements of our minor programme:
We set a minimum requirement of 36 credits for our minors offered. You should check the program structure of geography minor and that of urban governance minor to understand the study target and the credits requirements.
The outline/syllabus and the timetable of our geography courses are provided, so you might list the courses you wish to study with us and spread your selected courses around the semesters. You might then further adjust your courseload to take account of timetable clashes.
The University offers many tools e.g. Degree Audit Report (HKU Portal > My Page > SIS Menu > Academic Records > My Degree Audit) for you to keep track your academic progress. If you can stick to your plan, the study will be more productive. You are also free to self-evaluate to see if you are meeting your goals and expectations from time to time, in order to customize your academic plan to reach your goal as a geography minor.
Yes, we would analyse the spatial uneven distribution of economic activities and the recently emerged field of financial geography e.g. the driving forces behind the spatial agglomeration of financial centers.
Some courses recommended from us, including:
GEOG1012 Economic and Social Development in an Urbanizing World
GEOG1022 Global change and sustainable development
GEOG2030 Global Development
GEOG2090 Introduction to Geographic Information System
GEOG2128 Economic Geography
GEOG2136 Political Geography: International Relations and the World Economy
GEOG2149 Financial Geography
GEOG2166 Mapping the FinTech - Landscape Innovation, Space and Challenges
GEOG3426 Social Networks and Geography
GEOG3428 Regional Economic Policy
Whether a double major is worth it for you depends on your choice of career, your interest level in both majors, the requirements you must meet to pursue a double major, and your overall commitment to your education.
Should you decide to double major, you won't be alone. Here are some feedbacks we collected from our current double major students about what attracts them to this double major combination:
“I want a double recognition of geography and I want to gain multidisciplinary knowledge through the required geography courses.”
“I am interested in human geography. I decided my double major as I want to be more competitive for my future job hunting.”
“I saw my second major in Urban Governance as an extension of my first geography major study. My second major should offer an in-depth study for my first major. I aim to master the knowledge and skills needed to be a competitive geographer.”
“The combination sounds more professional than a single major and it is not too difficult for me to complete two majors given that they are associated to each other.”
“I took the GGAS (i.e. Geographical, Geological & Archaeological Society)’s advice that geography and urban governance double major is possibly the best degree combination to increase the career potential in the public as well as private sectors.”
Here are also some advices in pursuing the double major:
“Be sure to create your own study plan to identify the courses targeting to meet different certain requirements and balance your class schedule as a double major means a double commitment to your study.”
“If you wish to explore new topics and different areas of interest, a double major may not be the best choice for you as you are likely won’t have much time to explore other electives. I nearly used all my electives to complete the credits requirements of the double major.”
Yes, the pre-requisite courses are one of our major requirements. You might select two from Level 100 social science courses i.e. course code starting with SOCI, SINO, SOWK, PSYC, POLI, but not more than one from a single unit. For example, SOCI1003 + PSYC1004 will meet the requirements.
Theoretically yes. We welcome students to take our courses, but some faculties might request students to fill in “Application of Special Request form” to take introductory courses in their final year. Please check with your home Faculty if in doubt.
During the course selection period, your selections of Level 100 courses are time-stamped. We usually run the enrollment approval process near the end of the course selection period.
The course approval method of our Level 100 courses is first-come-first-served during the course-selection period and places would be allocated to Year 1 students first, and then would be based on the time-stamp.
Geography major students must take at least ONE core method course, but we encourage you to take more than one to strengthen your research skills and spatial techniques.
We have a diverse discipline offering knowledge to understand different contemporary issues including:
economic & social development,
environmental quality,
geography of public health,
global warming,
environmental hazards,
transport & urban issues,
tourism & leisure
Many of the courses we offer are highly relevant to the betterment of the local community and to your future career development.
Yes, you are welcome to take all method courses.
As we always said, the future belongs to those who prepare for it today. A series of courses designed this year to help you specialize your skills, including:
GEOG2090 Introduction of Geographic Information Systems
GEOG2120 Introductory Spatial Analysis
GEOG2141 Remote Sensing Applications
GEOG2147 Building Smart Cities with GIS
GEOG2157 Open source GIS
GEOG3202 GIS in Environmental Studies
Learning new skills would improve your marketability to employers in the job market. At the same, a career isn’t simply a job. It also about doing what you love. Therefore, we encourage students to take advantage of the add/drop period – to explore as many intriguing courses as you can, so as to understand and identify if the courses would able to cater your education needs as well as your interests to make your own decision for your study.
The courses listed on the regulations and syllabus are for reference only. For the list of courses we offered in 2022-23, please refer to https://www.geog.hku.hk/list-of-courses.
This year, we offer numerous GIS method courses to meet the demand of spatial analytic trends and the goal of smart city in Hong Kong 2030+, including:
GEOG2090 Introduction of Geographic Information Systems
GEOG2147 Building Smart Cities with GIS
GEOG2157 Open source GIS
GEOG3202 GIS in Environmental Studies
Besides GIS skills, statistical and remote sensing knowledge are also important to support geographical research, for example:
GEOG2120 Introductory Spatial Analysis
GEOG2141 Remote Sensing Applications
Yes, GEOG2056 Tourism in the Shrinking World (6 credits) is certified Communication-intensive (CI) Course which meets all of the requirements endorsed by HKU’s Senate. If you wish to develop communication-related knowledge, skills and attributes, more information at (for HKU members only):
https://intraweb.hku.hk/reserved_1/tlearn/cics/syllabus/GEOG2056.pdf. The C-I course badge will be visible on the student’s Academic Attainment Profile (AAP).
Under ‘normal’ (non-pandemic) circumstances, geography and urban governance majors may fulfill our programs’ capstone requirement by enrolling in an overseas field trip course.
In the event that the overseas field trip needs to be cancelled or postponed due to COVID-19 related restrictions in 2022-2023, students may use one of the following three courses to fulfill this capstone requirement: GEOG4002 Directed Project in Geography (6 credits) / GEOG4003 Honours Dissertation (12credits) / GEOG4004 Directed Project in Urban Governance (6 credits). Please be advised, failure to successfully complete one of these courses may alter your expected graduation date.
We understand that each student would have their study plan and various workload in your study programme. Therefore, we highly recommend you to take account of the time commitment of the Capstone Experience course too, in order to balance your study.
GEOG4001 course would take place in summer and the first semester of the following academic year, while GEOG4002, GEOG4003 and GEOG4004 would require a full-year commitment. We would usually notify the course information to our major students from time to time, but still we encourage our major students to keep track on your own academic progress. Please be advised, failure to successfully complete one of these courses may alter your expected graduation date.
GEOG4001 course is a compulsory capstone experience course for our Geography/ Urban Governance majors. It provides a valuable experience in examining real world situations from the natural environment, conservation, social and economic development, transportation and urban planning in a designated part of a foreign country.
Candidates are required to complete one ‘two weeks’ overseas residential field camp in the summer after Year 3 of study, and to produce a written field trip report (plus a poster/oral presentation where applicable) in the first semester of Year 4 study for assessment. Therefore, it also helps students develop useful transferable skills.
We offer a range of destination choices from the UK, South Korea, to Australia, and Italy. Students can apply for government funding support to cover some field trip expenses on a reimbursement basis.
For non-Social Science students, you might take any Level 200 or above advanced social sciences/ non social sciences courses to fulfill the 24 credits SI & GC requirements. You are welcome to take advanced geography courses to fulfill the SI & GC requirements too.
No, GEOG4001 course can only be used to fulfill the Capstone Experience requirements.
The top universities in the world would usually list the minimum qualifications required to satisfy the General Entrance Requirements for postgraduate studies, but they mainly look at your Graduation GPA scores and the Class of Honours. Taught postgraduate programme(s) would usually accept students with Second Class Honours and above, while research postgraduate programme(s) would prefer students with First Class Honours – mainly due to the fierce competition for places.
Nowadays, students who wish to pursue a research path would complete an MPhil programme first before applying for a PhD programme. Research postgraduate programmes aim at students who had already possessed a deeper understanding and more specialized hands-on skills in certain area, and are ready to research independently in a particular field. Students with a single major might therefore be more favorable to some professioriate staff who would request for specific subject backgrounds.
Academic Mentorship Scheme for Geography is a privileged scheme that provides one-to-one coaching to selected students who have excellent academic results in our major programme(s). Interested students may also proactively submit applications to the Department for consideration.
Details and the application form can be found at https://www.geog.hku.hk/gmms.