Postgraduate Degrees

1. Ms. YU Le

Awards: Programme Leader Award and Excellent Academic Performance Award

As an undergraduate student who majored in philosophy at Cambridge, I knew that a formal training in business data analytics would be invaluable for me to get to grips with today’s business- and data-driven world. I am extremely grateful to the bold and generous decision of the leader of the CityU’s Business Data Analytics (IAM stream) programme to offer me a chance in participating in it.

This programme exceeds my expectation in every respect. As a student with liberal arts background with A-Level but not university level mathematics, the coursework turns out to be completely manageable. Everything I learn in this programme is entirely new, exciting, mind-opening and thought-provoking. Almost all the courses are immediately relevant to application and they have great intrinsic interests in themselves. I particularly enjoy courses in statistics and linear statistical models: every day I wake up with eager expectation to learn more features that data can have and new ways to analyse them.

I think one perk that CityU offers to its non-local students that is perhaps not stressed enough is the wonderful opportunity to be in Hong Kong. Taking advantage of the abundant opportunities this vibrant city offers, within this short semester I have tried out many different types of jobs, ranging from data analyst to management consultant. Now I have finally found the vocation that is best suited to my strengths and temperament, considering my philosophical trainings at Cambridge University, business data analytics trainings at CityU, and the strong desire to engage with and contribute to the society. I wish to pursue a law-related career and I plan to pursue my further legal education in Hong Kong.

I have the fortune to live very near to the Victoria Harbour, and I walk through the Tsim Sha Tsui Waterfront Promenade every day. The view across the harbour overlooking Hong Kong Island made such a strong visual impression on me that it forever changed my values, tastes and plans for the future.

The CityU campus itself is also a wonderful place. By the start of the semester it was like a construction site, with green curtains and scaffolds everywhere. I felt that I was growing and transforming together with the campus. One evening I hurried to school for lectures, and the green curtains on Yeung Kin Man Academic Building disappeared: its gentle white walls shimmered under the moonlight. As I entered this building with its fresh appearance, I knew that my life was opening a new chapter too.

2. Mr. Pan Hanlin

Award: Programme Leader Award

My name is Pan Hanlin. I graduated from the School of Software, Tsinghua University, majoring in software engineering. Since professor Lau wants me to share my experience and perception in studying, I’d like to share them with you. It should be noted that these are only my personal experience and perception. Everyone's situation is different. The most important thing is to find a suitable learning method for yourself. So, what I said can only be used as a reference, I would appreciate it if it can benefit you even a little.

In my opinion, our major is an interdisciplinary subject of business and data science. The core of our major is to apply the knowledge of multiple subjects to realistic problems, which means that it is important not only to learn knowledge, but also to apply them. As you can see, our courses do give us a lot of opportunities to apply what we have learned to relatively practical problems. Each course will have a project assignment, then we will use real data sets or complete them according to the real situation. In this process, you do not just practice what you learned and deepen your understanding by completing the project, but also learn how to cooperate with others, which is of great significance to your future career. So, I think our major provides a broader choice for our future career.

When it comes to study perception, I think the most important thing is to reduce delays and stick to your plan. Personally, I like to start immediately after personal homework is released. On the one hand, because I have just finished learning, I will be deeply impressed by the content investigated, which will be helpful to my completion efficiency and quality. On the other hand, it will reduce your schedule risk. For example, if you plan to finish your homework before dead line, if there is an emergency at this time, things will become quite embarrassing. However, as I said, it's just my personal habit. I think there's no problem as long as the plan for completing the work is reasonable and can be completed on time.

For team project, things get a little bit complicated. Team projects tend to be more complex and the work effort more difficult to evaluate, so I think team projects may need to start early and leave enough buffer time, because projects may not be completed as you expect. This also leads to my second tip: importance of team working and communication. One of the most important meanings of team project is to learn to cooperate with others. It is about everyone expressing their opinions and reaching an agreement; finding the right role and task for everyone; communication and problem solving in time; monitor and manage the project progress and more......To some extent, this is even more important than the team project itself.

An extra tip is that healthy schedule and proper exercise may improve learning efficiency. For me, this can help me more energetic and face my studies better.

Finally, I want to explain again that these are just my personal experience. Maybe they are completely useless to others. The most important thing is to find a method suitable for yourself. I am very grateful that Professor Lau gives me such an opportunity to share my views with you. I also want to thank all the professors and TA for their teaching and hard work, as well as the classmates I met for their help.

3. Ms. XUE Shunjin

Award: Excellent Academic Performance Award

Undergraduate Study: Fudan University

Through the learning process of postgraduate in Business Data Analytics at City University of Hong Kong, I have begun to acquire all forms and orientations of Information Science, while keep seeking the direction which fits me the most in my career.

In semester A, I have involved in five courses and all of them need to work as a team to finish the final assignments which enhances my ability to multitask. The professors are patient and skillful and provided detailed tutorial materials which are of great help to students who have rare foundation in Information Science as me.

During the semester, I have quickly mastered two programming languages from scratch. More importantly, I got to know different models and the way of thinking in data analytics. Five times of involving in the process of topic selection, data cleaning, data visualization, modeling, analysis and presentation help me become an expert in data analytics in a short time.

In addition, at the end of the semester, that listening the presentations of the class helps me know more interesting topics, different problem-solving ideas and the different presentation skills. This is a much more valuable resources and learning materials.

Last but not least, the college provides us a chance to work on a project with the professor. The working experience with Dr. ZUO is precious. I got more opportunities to improve my coding skills and made up myself for my career.

4. Ms. LIU Haonan

Award: Excellent Academic Performance Award

Undergraduate Study: University of International Relations

During my study in DEC, I got up before 9 am and then went to school to have a brunch with my friend. At about 11am, I went to a computer classroom in Li or Lau, then start to review. At about 3 or 4 pm, my friend and I might go to canteen to have afternoon tea, and communicated some problems in our study or reviewed together. Then, around 6 or 7 pm, we would like to have dinner and then walk for a while. My study always ended at 10.30 pm and then I went back home and enjoy my time with my phone. I almost never studied at home during final week.

Above is my study schedule in final 3 weeks. It is not hard to insist for me, since I have much time to sleep, around 8 hours, and much time to relax, after I got home. I would never let myself feel lack of sleep or feel hungry, because once I wanted to eat something or have a nap, I would do it immediately. I concentrated on my study and enjoyed my time relaxing. Therefore, I could have high efficiency and got high grade in final exam.

5. Mr. LIU Ruiwen

Award: Excellent Academic Performance Award

Undergraduate Study: Shanghai Ocean University

One semester study in Business data analytics enables me to master plenty of useful skills, or say, at least have a very comprehensive understanding within the business, and this is particularly importance for a layman who is seeking a way to get into the business.

More specifically, the curriculum includes several basic domains that are required by the industry, for instance, programming skills (including python and R), understanding of statistics (including but not limited to linear regression) and database, and application of many methods to solve problem under business circumstance. Several widely-used tools are introduced, such tableau and SAS EM, all of these skills prepare me and get me competitive for future job associated with data analysts.

Also, we are required to corporate within a group, analyze the problem, and present a reasonable solution, these kind of projects enables us to have a peek of true business situation, and give us precious experience of how to work together effectively and efficiently.

The professors are very professional and responsible, they arranged the subjects scientifically and systematically, which let students from all backgrounds, especially who are not in computer-associated domains, can learn without troubles. In conclusion, half-year studying in BDA is very substantial and interesting, and it is an honor to be nominated to receive this award.

6. Mr. ZHU Junchao

Award: Excellent Academic Performance Award

Undergraduate Study: University of Electronic Science and Technology of China

It’s really my pleasure and luck to receive the scholarship of Outstanding Student Award of MSc Business Data Analytics - Information Analytics Management Stream.

I majored in computer science when I was an undergraduate, so I luckily have a certain knowledge base for MSc Business Data Analytics, which has a large number of courses related to computer programming. In addition, the courses my teachers offer are all interesting and elaborate, and the software and algorithms used in my daily courses are all practical. All these things arouse my interest, so I can continue to actively explore and learn. Another thing I must mention is that my project team members are all very warm and friendly, and there is always a very harmonious atmosphere in the usual team activities and meetings, so we can complete each course project so happily and smoothly.

What’s more, my team members also work hard with me for the exam preparations during the exam week and we encourage each other. Finally, the school library also provides me with a very good learning environment, as well as a large number of books and network resources; while every teacher is very conscientious, and they will be very patient to answer every question. I really thank them very much!

Hello, I'm Lu Jie, a student of MSc BDA (ISM). Time flies. We have been "net friends" for more than half a year. I'm glad to have this opportunity to share my learning experience with you. Maybe I'm not good at writing, but I still hope this sharing can be helpful to your studies.

First of all, we must listen to the teacher carefully, not only in class, but also after class. Online class is a double-edged sword, which means that we may not be able to communicate with teachers face to face, but we have more opportunities to watch the record repeatedly. This means that we can easily review the content of the class after class, and fast forward or pause thinking according to our own needs.

Secondly, hands-on practice is very important. I am a science and engineering background to read this major, but I do not have a strong programming background, both Python and R are new knowledge to me. In the usual assignment and tutorial, I think it is very obvious to improve the "code power" by writing programs by myself. We usually think it's OK to just understand the program, but in fact, the feeling of writing by ourselves is completely different, there will be a lot of unexpected accidents. By the way, I actually think that our major does need a certain programming ability.

Finally, think more and summarize more. I think the most important thing for a data analyst is not the level of technology and the using of tools, but the ability to think more. How to extract useful information from a piece of data and how to choose an effective way in modeling are very important and difficult to cultivate. More thinking and more summary, I think it is not only helpful for the present study, but also beneficial for the future career.

Under the epidemic situation, everyone's study and life may not be very satisfied. I hope we can make progress together in our future study and life, and we can become friends in reality instead of being "net friends" XD.

I am KONG Chuyi. Since I studied at home all day, this experience is not suitable for students who study while interning. Otherwise, it may be a bit time-consuming and lead to poor results in both study and work.

First of all, I think the most worthwhile experience to share is to take the right attitude towards the class, that is, we should not take the class less seriously or even not be on time just because the online class has video, but imagine that every class is the same as during college without video, and try our best to listen to what the teacher is saying. A good rest is a guarantee of being able to listen to the lectures intensively. The good rest mentioned here does not mean that we have to get up at 6 a.m., but to ensure that we have plenty of energy to concentrate during the class. In fact, I rarely get up before 10 a.m. because most of my classes are in the evening.

Secondly, after each class, my first task is to finish the homework, and then to summarize the framework of the class, of course in Chinese, which can greatly reduce the stress of the final. If you still have energy after class, you can work on these two tasks right away, so that your memory will be firm.

Then, when it comes to choosing classes, we can choose classes that suit us and where we can learn something. Taking me for example, I am very introverted and not suitable for choosing courses where class participation and group cooperation take up a high percentage of the score, so I choose courses that are more difficult but have a higher individual weighting.

Finally, for the final exams, I found that some of the subjects had a lot of questions and I couldn't finish them even though they were easy, so I would recommend doing simulation training before the final exams to control the time.

My name is XIONG Jinqing, and I am currently studying MScBDA-ISM Master Degree in CityU. This is my fifth year studying at CityU, and I just graduated from College of Business in CityU in 2020 with a major in information management. However, this year's study has been greatly changed because of the epidemic. All courses can only be delivered online. Thanks to the joint efforts of all the teachers and staff in our school, we have created a perfect environment for online learning, I also quickly adapted to this way of learning.

The advantage of online learning is that the time is more flexible, so that I can fully arrange my time. As for me who is about to graduate, this will enable me to balance study and internship better. At the same time, the playback system ensures the teaching quality of each class, so that I can review my lessons and complete my homework better after class. Although online learning cannot communicate with teachers and classmates face to face, it does not reduce our enthusiasm for learning. We can still communicate effectively through various social platforms and emails, and work together in groups.

The happiest thing is that I have met many familiar faces in my postgraduate courses. It is a great honor for me that my professor who taught me in my undergraduate course continue to teach me. The understanding of each other also enables me to get into the learning state faster and achieve better grades. I cherish my time in CityU very much, especially every professor is very concerned about our study and our future development, which makes me feel safe.

I am LIANG Ziqing. It is such an honor to be nominated for this scholarship and to share my experience. I had been working for 5 years before joining this MSc BDA (ISM) Program, and it is challenging for me to get back to school again to pursue knowledge in another field. However during the semester A, without surprise, I enjoyed it very much. I loved the feeling of new things sparkling inside my head.

I was majored in Chemistry in undergraduate study when I regarded learning tasks as burdens. At that time things were difficult and unpleasure. After 5 years working and coming back to school again. I had different vision and I built myself a different attitude about learning, which is to enjoy the knowledge. In ISM stream, programing skill is one big problem for me because I did not have any related background before. Therefore, I usually prepared quite ahead of time for each project to give myself enough time to learn related skills. I liked to seek for help when I needed it. I still remembered I zoomed Dr. Yan Aihua when I feel the difficulties in the IS5740 group project. I visited Prof. Tse Siu Keung’s office when I have confusion about the course work. I even visited Dr. Feng Guanhao’s office to ask how it was to pursue a PHD. Teachers are in fact the most powerful resources. They are highly professional and experienced. They are always kind and willing to share their views.

To draw a conclusion, every homework and projects were puzzles waited to be solved, and I tried not to regard them as tasks and burdens. I think passion is the fastest way to win games and asking for help is the most powerful tool in study.

I am Yang Xinyue.

1) Learning

In my opinion, it is important to understand tutorials and finish assignments after class, which can help me keep knowledge points in mind. Most of the time lecture slides are helpful enough during the implementation of individual assignments, so when I find something confusing, I would check slides for many times until I get the answer.

2) Programming

Programming is a required skill for us ISMers, therefore, it is necessary to pay attention to practicing programming. However, for students who do not have IT backgrounds, they may find it hard to start to learn programming. According to my own experience, imitating teachers’ codes and typing it by myself is the first step, next, undertaking the code part in the group project is a nice way to push me to self-study something more about programming, moreover, making a daily programming plan is also helpful, like doing few exercise every day on online programming platform, such as LeetCode and Nowcoder.

3) Examination

For this part, I have two suggestions. One is that at the beginning of the reviewing, sorting out the knowledge framework of the exam can make the reviewing more efficient, and the other is that treat the open-book exam as a closed-book exam.

杜晓川​

“我感到非常荣幸可以获得这份荣誉。首先，我非常感谢ISM的教授们和同学们。下面我与大家分享我的一些学习体会：

• 及时预习和复习

PPT\数据集\选读的阅读资料等）上传到canvas。我建议课前预习这些教学资料，课后及时回顾，基本每周我都会将当周的所有课程复习一遍，查缺补漏，不懂就马上问同学和教授。做到及时的预习和复习，期末的压力也减轻许多！

• 认真对待每一次课堂练习和作业

通常，每门课的课堂参与、个人作业、小组作业和期末考试都是总成绩的一部分。而课堂参与、个人作业和小组作业都是在非考试周完成的，占总成绩比例不小，想要取得好成绩的话不能马虎应对。同时，建议上课积极与老师互动，有的课还能获得​

• 在小组合作中积极表现，与教授保持联络

​几乎所有课都有小组作业，几乎所有课都有小组作业，我认为完成一份出色的小组作业的重要因素之一是靠谱的队友。小组组成后，确保自己在小组合作中明白小组任务并配合组员积极认真的完成

方旭

“很开心能够获得这份荣誉，也感谢我的教授和同学们，他们帮助了我很多。下面我与大家分享我的一些学习体会：

• 在专业课程的学习中，认真积极的学习态度和学习方法是必不可少的。

对每一个不懂的问题，都要主动认真钻研，先通过看PPT和教科书自己研究，如果实在没有答案再去询问老师或者同学，这样我们对学到的知识才会更加印象深刻。

• 在上课前，预习可以帮助我们对接下来的课程内容理解得更加透彻。

​将在预习过程中遇到的问题记录下来，在上课的过程中去寻找答案。如果课上还有听不明白的地方，就认真记录下来，课后再去寻求答案。

• 作业，Tutorial和日常小Quiz是非常重要的。

​通过练习我们可以学会如何将理论运用到实践，同时查漏补缺。因此，在老师讲解正确答案的时候，我们一定要全神贯注，理解自己什么地方做错了，为什么做错，这是非常有帮助的。

• 学会如何有效率的自学也是必要的。

我会将所有ppt都打印下来，对照英文原版教材阅读。教材中有许多ppt内容的拓展和解释，有时候当我对ppt内容感到疑惑的时候，我可以在教材中找到完美的解释。但有时候，教材内容很多，很难短时间读完，因此合理安排时间和规划重点是非常重要的，这会让我们的效率更高。

• 我非常看重小组项目，因为这是一个极为有用的部分。

和同学一起沟通分析解决问题的过程可以学到许多不一样的观点和思维方法，在讨论如何将课堂上的知识正确地运用到我们的项目中的过程中，我收获了很多，并且对课堂知识有了更加深刻的理解，我认为这样的经验对我日后的学习和工作都是很有用的。”

韩晶华

“首先，非常荣幸获得这份荣誉，我之所以能够取得这样的成绩，离不开教授们、同学们、组员们的帮助，感谢他们！下面，想跟大家分享一些学习心得：

• 选课的时候认真考虑选什么课和选课的时间。

​选修课可以自由选择，在了解选修课的syllabus后，如有机会还可以向学长学姐请教经验，选择自己真正感兴趣的课程。另一方面，根据自己的学习习惯安排上课时间，比如我习惯给自己留完整且长时间的自学时间，所以我排了三天的课，剩下两天由自己安排。

• 预习是很有必要的。

​预习可以帮助你提前熟悉不懂的内容，标注有疑惑的点，在听讲的过程中多了更深入的思考。当然，预习的过程可能需要花很多的时间，但是帮助高效地听课，预习+听课可以帮助我快速掌握90%左右的内容。

• 平衡好不同任务的学习时间。

​通常来说，个人作业是周期性的，小组作业是阶段性的，小组作业通常期中和期末两个时间段比较忙。我的学习习惯是不拖延，一拿到个人作业就开始行动，趁早完成。因为小组作业的完成的进度还取决于组员的时间进度，所以时间和任务量可能随时调整，尽早完成个人作业，可以保证自己有质量地完成个人作业，同时也留有充足的时间完成有质量保证的小组作业。

• 关于tutorial：

有些课会在课上进行tutorial，课堂上要尽量跟上，如果实在没有跟上，也不用太着急，课后可以跟着tutorial的材料自学，不懂的问题就向同学、教授和TA请教。

• 关于自习的地方：

我们学校三个教学楼都有很多自习的地方，来到CityU的第一周不妨多尝试几个自习的地方，选择一个最适合自己的地方。我个人最喜欢图书馆，就是空调实在太冷了。”