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Mr. THIAGARAJAN, Kowshik Balaji
I am from India and am currently a penultimate year BBA Finance student and Resident Tutor of HSBC Prosperity Hall (Hall 2). My experience as an international student has, overall, been positive in the student residence; Hong Kong is one of the most expensive cities in the world, so it is by no means student-budget friendly. So, student residence is live-saver for the students to be part of a rich community with diverse activities in an expensive city like Hong Kong. Hall is the most important part of a student’s life, especially in Hong Kong. Being in a city with a busy environment and a university with hectic schedules, Student Residence is the place where we get to meet people, participate in events and learn cultures of different nationalities. CityU’s student residence provides very different experience when compared to other student residences in Hong Kong, mainly due to the unique culture of different halls.
CityU student residence offers an ideal multiculti environment. Socialising with international and local students was quite easy at the start, and I soon expanded my social network by joining several student-initiated events and activities: fun and good times guaranteed! I am still friends with people from different countries whom I had met during their exchange term – and it’s been more than a year since then. However, socialising with the local students seemed to be more complicated at the beginning, perhaps because of the language barriers. However, the environment in Hall 2 (the hall I live in), promotes the diversity-related events, which made it easier for me to mingle with the local students.
During my stay in Hall 2, I took the initiative of participating in events. As time progressed, I was interested in organising events, and with the immense support of resident master Dr Ray, I started a new team called ‘Entrepreneurial Team’, which aimed to provide a platform to all the students residing in the CityU Student Residence, to share, learn and develop their ideas in a manner that our team through their personal experience in this sphere, believes to be successful in the area of entrepreneurship. We aimed to inform and provide opportunities but also to train and mentor each member on how to capitalize on them by knowing the nuances.
As a resident tutor, I have been given the opportunity to live and work alongside amazing resident tutors, resident master, SRO, and finally the residents. These opportunities have allowed me to develop necessary soft skills that make me more competitive in my future endeavors. I have thoroughly enjoyed myself while living in Residence, for the multitude of experiences I have been granted, and now I am looking forward to organizing more events as a resident tutor to create meaningful impacts to the residents of Hall 2 and SRO.
Lastly, living in our residence community has allowed me to make significant connections with not only students but other para-professional and professional staff members. These connections snowball into other opportunities to develop oneself while creating friendships and memories that may last well beyond my time at the institution.
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