Getting Started: A Step-by-Step Guide to Course Selection

For the first time, you get to choose all your courses yourself. This may seem like a daunting task, especially if you are not familiar with the logistics. Don’t worry! If you are feeling lost, this course selection guide is here to help.

To begin with, note down the important dates of the academic year 2022–2023. You can find them listed on the website of the Academic Advising Office: https://aao.hku.hk/important-academic-dates/.

For Year 1 students, Online Course Selection will start at 10:00 a.m. on 19th August (Friday).

Choosing your courses:

After you have completed your Online Master Registration, you can start planning for the coming year.

To know more about the course offerings of the various schools and departments, you can visit their respective websites. The following information regarding each course will usually be available: Synopsis, Prerequisites, Assessment Components, Time, and Venue. Go ahead and make a list of the courses you are interested in!

This will be a good chance to make sure that: a. you fulfil their prerequisites; and b. there are no time clashes between them (which will prevent you from enrolling successfully in either course).

The courses offered by the School of English in the coming academic year can be found here: https://english.hku.hk/Undergraduate/Course_Offerings_and_Time-table. If you wish to take any of these courses, you must have obtained a minimum of Level 5 in English Language in your HKDSE examinations (or an equivalent score in another recognised English Proficiency test). If you are a non-JUPAS candidate, please also send your qualification to the School Office after course enrolment.

Once you have planned which courses to take, you can log in to your HKU Portal account and go to Enrollment Add Classes under ‘Enrollment’. To save time during course registration, you are recommended to add your courses to the Temporary Course List beforehand. It may also be helpful to have a few backup courses on hand, in case your original choices are disapproved after course registration (which unfortunately happens more often than you might expect).

Registering your courses:

On 19th August, log in to your HKU Portal account in advance. As you may encounter system errors during the course registration process, you are strongly recommended find a place with a stable internet connection. You may also want to log in with more than one device beforehand.

Go to Enrollment Add Classes and click the Finish Enrolling button at precisely 10:00 a.m. (you can use the Web Clock on the Hong Kong Observatory website for reference). If you are logged out of the website, don’t fret! Simply register using your other device(s) and/or try to log in again with your original device.

Last but not least, remember to finish enrolment for semester 2, which starts 10 minutes (10:10 a.m.) after that of semester 1.

Taking your courses:

After finishing course registration, there isn’t much left to do. Kick back and enjoy the rest of your summer!

Once the semester starts, you have the option to enrol in new courses or drop out of existing ones during the Add/Drop Period, which takes place during the first two weeks of each semester. Lectures during this period are often introductory in nature, so it is a good chance to see if the courses are a good fit for you. If you have any questions regarding a particular course, don’t hesitate to reach out to your instructors.

There is a wide variety of courses available at HKU, some of which you may not have even heard of before. Keep an open mind and explore at your own pace—you may end up where you least expected!