The maximum study load is 39 credit-units per semester. This restriction acts to protect students who may overestimate their capability and perform well below their expectations in their courses.

The normal load is 30 credit-units per semester. We study the amount of workload involved and consider that this is the right amount for an average student. For a student below average, this normal load of 30 credit-units is high. A load of 39 credit-units for an average student is extremely high; for lesser students, this is almost impossible. Do not think that this maximum limit is imposed to restrict students in a negative sense.

For students who encounter learning difficulty, do not overload to 39 credit-units per semester but underload below 30 credit-units with special permission from our Department. There is no point in taking more courses than can be handled. The most important point is that you can learn effectively and pass all the courses. There are many cases in which students who had failed in many courses and intend to “recover” their “losing ground” by enroling in many courses in the new semester. Not surprisingly, these students failed badly again in nearly all the courses. Therefore, they would worsen their situations further and may even end up in discontinuing their studies.

If a student wants to overload above the maximum limit of 39 credit-units per semester, the student must apply to the Faculty through the Department. Generally, the Department only supports such application from students, whose last SGPA or last YGPA is not less than 3.0. To apply, the student must complete and submit the following two forms to the Department.

http://www.eee.hku.hk/InternalInformation/enrolment/doc/DeptOverloadDeclarationForm.pdf.

http://www.eee.hku.hk/InternalInformation/enrolment/doc/FacultyOverloadApplicationForm.doc.

Approval is not automatic and will be considered on a case by case basis.

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A Breadth Course is a course satisfying all of the following three conditions.

(a) It must be a Level-1 or Level-2 course.
(b) It must be an optional course (i.e. not core/compulsory).
(c) It must be listed in one of the Subject Groups of the curriculum concerned.
Note that each degree programme defines its own set of Subject Groups. A Subject Group may include courses offered by other departments, e.g the CSIS courses. But the overall majority of Breadth courses are offered by our Department.

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A Depth Course is a course satisfying all of the following three conditions.

(a) It must be a Level-3 course.
(b) It must be an optional course (i.e. not core/compulsory).
(c) It must be listed in one of the Subject Groups of the curriculum concerned.

Note that each degree programme defines its own set of Subject Groups. A Subject Group may include courses offered by other departments, e.g the CSIS courses. But the overall majority of Breadth courses are offered by our Department.

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The term Subject Electives is clearly defined in the Undergraduate Handbook. A Subject Electives course must satisfy all of the following conditions.

(a) It must be a technical course offered by our Department at any level. A technical course here refers to a course whose nature is EEE related, but must not be a course of complementary studies. For example, ELEC2803 (Engineering and society) and CENG1003 (a Chinese course) are considered as courses in complementary studies, while ELEC2301 (Analogue Electronics), ELEC2101 (Power Transmission and Distribution) and mathematical course are technical courses.

(b) It can be any technical course within or outside the list of courses as defined in the Subject Groups in the EComE/InfoE/EE degree programme.

(c) It cannot overlap significantly with other courses that a student has already enrolled.

(d) It cannot be a course offered by other departments unless one of the following two conditions is satisfied.

(i) Special prior approval from our Department has been obtained before enrolment.

(ii) In each academic year, a list of relevant courses for a particular degree programme is published at the end of the Enrolment Information document for that degree programme. All courses offered by other departments in the list can be taken as Subject Electives without the need to seek for special prior approval from our Department.

The term Subject Electives is clearly defined in the Undergraduate Handbook. A Subject Electives course must satisfy all of the following conditions.

(a) It must be a technical course offered by the EEE or CS Department at any level. A technical course here refers to a course whose nature is EEE or CS related, but must not be a course of complementary studies. For example, ELEC2803 (Engineering and society) and CENG1003 (a Chinese course) are considered as courses in complementary studies, while ELEC2301 (Analogue Electronics), ELEC2101 (Power Transmission and Distribution) and mathematical course are technical courses.

(b) It can be any technical course within or outside the list of courses as defined in the Subject Groups in the CE degree programme.

(c) It cannot overlap significantly with other courses that a student has already enrolled.

(d) It cannot be a course offered by other departments unless special prior approval from our Department has been obtained before enrolment.

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Yes and no.

(a) For example, ELEC2204 Digital Signal Processing is a technical course and is listed in all curricula. According to the definition of Breadth course, it can be taken as Breadth course. However, it also falls within the definition of Subject Electives. Therefore, it can be counted as a Breadth course or a Subject Electives course. Therefore, the answer is a “yes” within this context.

(b) However, there must be no double count. That is, it can only be counted as a Breadth course or as a Subject Electives course towards but not both at the same time towards your graduation requirements. Therefore, the answer is a “no” within this context.

Different students may have different study plans. So it is almost impossible for the Credit Calculator to read a student’s minds to determine whether a student plans to have a particular course as Breadth or Subject Electives. Therefore, do not fully rely on the Credit Calculator. You must always compare the results given by the Credit Calculator with the graduation requirements of your degree programme as specified in the appropriate Undergraduate Handbook. The Credit Calculator is meant to be a tool in helping you plan your study and highlight potential problems. If in doubt, consult your Programme Director/Co-director.

(The above answer also similarly applies to Depth courses.)

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Some courses are marked as mutually exclusive. For example, suppose courses A, B and C are mutually exclusive, then you can only take at most one course out of A, B and C.

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Each faculty in the University has its own set of courses open for students of other faculties to take. Such courses are called Inter-faculty Electives. The purpose of Inter-faculty Electives is to widen students’ scope of learning.

Although each Faculty has its own distinct academic identity, there are unavoidably some common areas of interest among faculties. For example, electronics is a common area of interest to both the Department of Physics and our Department. If we allow students to take this kind of courses, the purpose of Inter-faculty Electives cannot be achieved. Therefore, we do not allow students in selecting certain Inter-faculty Electives courses. Starting from the academic year 2007-08, our Department publishes a list of Inter-faculty Elective courses, which students are not allowed to take due to various reasons, such as overlap of contents with our courses. However, this is not an exhaustive list because faculties may add or drop courses or revise the course contents from time to time. This list can be downloaded from:
http://www.eee.hku.hk/InternalInformation/enrolment/doc/unacceptable_list_2009-10.pdf

It is our usual practice to approve enrolment in courses made available to our students by other departments, except those listed above.

However, the Department has little or no control over the enrolment in courses offered by other departments. Different departments have different criteria in admitting students into their courses. We cannot instruct or dictate other departments on how to conduct their course enrolment. Therefore, if your enrolment request for a course not in the unacceptable list is rejected, it is most likely the rejection is not made by us but by the offering departments.

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Some M.Sc. courses are open to undergraduate students to take as Subject Electives. These courses are listed at the end of the Enrolment Information document published each academic year.

The basic unit of M.Sc. courses is a module. Our Department counts a M.Sc. module as equivalent to 3 undergraduate credit-units. An undergraduate student cannot take more than 6 credit-units equivalent of M.Sc. course modules as Subject Electives.

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There are courses with sub-classes. Students of a particular degree programme are assigned to certain sub-classes for various administration purposes, such as timetabling and control of class sizes. In each academic year, a list of relevant courses for a particular degree programme is published at the end of the Enrolment Information document for that degree programme. In the list, the letter at the end of a course code indicates the assigned subclass of that course. If there is no letter at the end of a course code, the default subclass is “A”. You must adhere to the sub-class specified in the list of courses. If there are compelling reasons that you may not want to select the subclass specified, you must request for and obtain special permission before doing so.

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An ISWP student is considered as successfully completed the programme only if the student has obtained a “PASS” grade based on the student’s work in the programme and the log-book submitted.

Students, who have successfully completed ISWP are regarded as having satisfied all the requirements of ELEC1804 Industrial Training. However, they still need to enroll in ELEC1804 Industrial Training so that this recognition can be officially recorded down.

Therefore, all students undertaking ISWP in a particular year should make sure that they have enrolled in ELEC1804 of that year.

e.g. An ISWP student started the programme in July, 2007 and will finish working in June 2008. The student is regarded as taking ISWP in the academic year 2007-08. The student should enroll ELEC1804 as a Summer Semester course in the academic year 2007-08.

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No, in general our Department does not allow students undertaking ISWP to enroll into any courses other than ELEC1804 Industrial Training.

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No, in general our Department does not allow HKU exchange student to institutions overseas to enroll in HKU courses during the exchange period.

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When a student subscribes to a Minor Options or Double Degree porgramme, there is a special set of rules for the student to follow. This includes the replacement of certain EEE courses with some specific BUSI/FINA courses.

However, when a student of Minor Options or Double Degree ceases in participating in a Minor Options or Double Degree programme for any reason, that set of special rules no longer applies. That student must then follow exactly the same set of rules, including graduation requirements, as any other students not in the Minor Options or Double Degree programmes.

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No. There is a length of study specified in the Regulations for the degree of Bachelor of Engineering (B.Eng.).

EN 2 Length of Study
The curriculum shall normally require six semesters of full-time study, spread over three academic years.

Therefore, a student cannot graduate earlier by overloading.

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NO. For those students who participate in any University/Faculty supported Exchange programme of 1 semester to 1 academic year, they should PLAN and check the online enrolment in ELEC1803 or ELEC1804 more carefully. Kindly note that participation in any Exchange programme NEVER implies that the online enrolment in ELEC1803 (Workshop Training) or ELEC1804 (Industrial Training) will be automatically dropped. THE STUDENTS are responsible and need to "manually" drop the affected enrolment themselves due to the Exchange studies. After the student drops the concerned training course, (s)he should bear in mind to enrol in it later, and get the training completed to obtain a PASS before your graduation.

For example, assume that the student had already enrolled in ELEC1804 in the Summer Semester of 2008-09, and later confirmed to participate in the University Exchange Programme for 1 whole year from July 2009 to June 2010, the student should firstly DROP the enrolment of ELEC1804 in the Summer Semester of 2008- 09. In case the student plans to complete your ELEC1804 in the Summer of 2010, i.e. immediately after the return from Exchange study, the student should enroll ELEC1804 in the Summer Semester of 2009-010, and contact our Industrial Training Coordinator for the necessary arrangement of the concerned industrial training.

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