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| 2023-12-14 | Initially, I heard many negative feedback from seniors about the course, but I quickly realized they were mistaken. |
| 2023-12-12 | An awakening! |
| 2023-05-25 | Templates on sale, anyone? |
| 2023-05-23 | Who is to blame? The Observatory? Or yourself? |
| 2023-05-20 | I hope all students would be just as willing to learn and reach out for help from us! |
| 2023-05-05 | Can students late-drop their worst performing course? |
| 2023-01-16 | We shall overcome! We shall overcome the GPA killer's challenge! |
| 2022-12-30 | Rules! We follow rigid rules! |
| 2022-12-30 | I am honest. Why don't you trust me? |
| 2022-12-17 | How many times do I have to repeat before you listen and follow my instructions? |
| 2022-12-06 | Teaching Innovation Award |
| 2022-11-07 | Our expectation: 10 hours per week for 12 weeks! |
| 2022-09-28 | Is it possible to late drop? |
| 2022-06-21 | Why not implement zoom invigilation on top of personalized exam papers? |
| 2022-03-21 | DO NOT PANIC. YOU CAN DO IT. WE CAN HELP YOU, ABSOLUTELY FREE!!! |
| 2022-01-27 | Can you help supervise my project? |
| 2022-01-19 | Please help me to enroll in Introductory Microeconomics NOW! |
| 2022-01-15 | Thank you, for putting in your best effort, thus letting me achieve what I wanted to achieve. |
| 2022-01-06 | It is never easy to face failure, but it can be an important learning experience. |
| 2021-12-30 | University life is not just about getting good grades, but also exploring your limit and understanding yourself. |
| 2021-10-04 | Reasons for disapproving late drop requests |
| 2021-08-04 | It takes two to tango! |
| 2021-08-02 | ECON1210 a killer course? KF Wong a killer? |
| 2021-07-20 | Shock and sad to see student's poor performance in 2021 Spring |
| 2021-07-14 | Cooling-off period |
| 2021-03-17 | Online data are cheap and easy to find, but they have limitations! |
| 2021-02-08 | Mini-projects to build up research ability (1) |
| 2021-01-11 | Be our advisor, please! |
| 2020-12-21 | Why do we need this transparency? For fairness! For learning! |
| 2020-11-23 | You want to build some muscle but do not want to use your time exercising? I can help by exercising for you! |
| 2020-11-18 | Feedback to feedback |
| 2020-11-15 | General comments on participant's performance in a competition |
| 2020-11-04 | Yes, 1200+ personalized versions of the test paper! |
| 2020-02-18 | Let students focus on learning, teachers on teaching, and thus together achieve the intended learning outcomes. |
| 2020-02-10 | Online learning requires Discipline, DISCIpline, DISCIPLINE! |
| 2019-01-15 | Supposedly not difficult to get a B grade. |
| 2018-12-11 | This quality is more important than grades. |
| 2018-11-15 | Late dropping |
| 2018-11-15 | Unreliability of average SETL scores due to the high non-response rate |
| 2018-11-13 | Let go! |
| 2018-10-24 | No, please do not use my lecture time for your society's announcement. |
| 2018-09-26 | Scheduling an appointment |
| 2018-08-27 | None of my business |
| 2018-08-21 | Course evaluation bounds and response rate |
| 2018-08-09 | Be a responsible job applicant |
| 2018-02-10 | No calories browsing.... |
| 2018-01-24 | Would "uncertain" help your postgraduate study application? I would say, CERTAINLY NOT! |
| 2017-09-14 | When helping your friend is NOT HELPING YOUR FRIEND! |
| 2017-09-13 | My life as a student -- AGAIN |
| 2017-09-05 | You like easy grade, easy honor, easy graduation? |
| 2017-07-18 | My Facebook friends, please protect me just as I protect you. |
| 2017-07-12 | An internship |
| 2016-03-01 | You know me. But, do I know you? |
| 2015-12-17 | Why learning fails to happen despite the great design of the course and the great teacher? |
| 2015-10-20 | Can I trust you, my friend? |
| 2015-10-17 | If we have the second chance to "retake", failing or getting a low grade would not be so stressful. |
| 2015-09-18 | My first-hand experience on why learning is not taking place in lectures! |
| 2015-08-20 | Are you sure Econometrics is useless? |
| 2015-05-04 | Eating 100 bowls of rice in a day |
| 2015-01-31 | You say you love me. How can I tell whether you truly love me? |
| 2014-10-24 | I would be happy to write recommendations letter for your PhD or Master application if .... |
| 2014-10-23 | Master of Finance at MIT |
| 2014-10-06 | Are you sure what you saw was black? |
| 2014-03-05 | GOLDEN opportunity -- only to the hard-working students. |
| 2014-03-01 | What to do when your teacher's teaching style does not fit your learning style? |
| 2013-11-28 | A negative experience? Not completely. It can be made into a positive one! |
| 2013-11-27 | Many thanks for your appreciation of my teaching (II) |
| 2013-07-23 | My next stop is Barcelona! |
| 2013-06-01 | Her decision to pursue Master of Finance after her undergradaute study at HKU |
| 2012-11-10 | What should I do at HKU (activities versus study and many other things)? |
| 2011-09-12 | Coach, can you teach me to swim? |
| 2010-02-18 | How government policy with good intention can create frustration and political instability? Consider a world that has been evolving in the same manner for a while so that things are quite predictable. In particular, there are ten new jobs to fill each period. Ten persons are born each period. Ten persons retire each period. Ten persons die each period. In this world, education involves only monetary investment. You take an entrance exam, pay the tuition, go to school and you will get the qualification --- none of these take time. There are various levels and types of education investment, say, university degrees, higher secondary, lower secondary, primary, etc. Education is heavily controlled and subsidized by the government. The government sets the quota for each types of education. Entry into the next level of eudcation is based on public exams of the previous levels. Performance in the public exam can be due to IQ, luck and hardwork. In this world, everybody works hard and is just lucky as any body else -- so that only IQ matters. Controlled by the government, the education system each year produces only one person with a university degree, two persons with higher secondary, three persons with lower secondary, and four persons with primary. Naturally, we expect that the person with the highest IQ will attain the highest level of education and hence the highest pay job. The one with most education investment will be matched with the highest pay job and the ones with the least education investment will be matched with the lowest pay jobs. What is the rate of return to education investment from upper secondary education to university education? We can compute the difference between average discounted stream of income of the university degree holder and the average discounted stream of income of those with upper secondary education and divide this difference by the amount of investment incurred by the individual when he or she is given the chance to pursue the university education after the upper secondary education.
Seeing the attractive return to education investment, everyone wants to invest in higher education -- only if the government is willing to expand the places of higher education.
One day, seeing the good rate of return to education, the government decides to expand its higher education. To accomplish this, the government increases its budget on education by a little and reduces its subsidy per person by a little. That is, pursuance of education involves a bigger amount of investment from the student's point of view. Imagine that under the new arrangement, each year, the economy produces four persons with university degree, three persons with higher secondary, two persons with lower secondary, and one person with primary education. Of course, we expect that the person with the highest IQ will attain the highest level of education (university). However three other persons with slightly lower IQ also attain the university education. Suppose we still have the same ten new jobs to fill each period. The company which pays the highest salary would like to continue to hire the best candidate. In previous year, it only needs to hire the one with university education without giving any interview or test. Now, the company has to conduct a series of interviews and tests to tell who is better among the four candidates with university education. We expect that the person with the highest IQ among the four university graduates will get the job with the highest pay.
The three other university graduates will definitely feel frustrated: How come I have to take up jobs that was previously taken by persons with higher secondary education or even lower secondary education? How come I obtain a salary than a person with lower education in the same job? How come I am working under a boss who attained lower education than I am? The investment in the university education does not seem to pay! It is so unfair.
Of course, this frustration will die down eventually --- after the economy has been operating like this for a while and becomes predictable again. Such change in the education system can create a political crisis during the transition. The frustrated university graduates may get organized to show their frustration against the government.
Does this story ring a bell?
| 2009-12-01 | Cherish our beloved ones who are still around us -- when we still can! | | 2009-11-27 | Trust your teachers, but don't trust them blindly! | | 2009-11-26 | You can give me a low score but please write some comments to help me improve my teaching. | | 2009-08-26 | The similarity in health care service provision and fire fighting service provision | | 2009-03-23 | Be brave. Visit your teachers. Ask them questions. Your teachers are a lot nicer than you think. | | 2009-03-14 | How can you verify this is really you -- Dr. Ka-fu Wong of HKU? | | 2009-03-09 | I dream to work in the business sector. Should I pursue a master degree before I join the private sector? | | 2009-02-19 | Any economist can predict this... Can you? | | 2008-12-21 | My students performed poorly in the final exam.
Help me help them.... please. | | 2008-12-20 | Learning should not end with the final exam! | | 2008-11-19 | Exchange in Europe can be very rewarding! | | 2008-11-18 | UC Berkeley is my top choice for exchange! | | 2008-11-02 | Why did we not have fresh mushrooms twenty years ago? | | 2008-02-23 | Dialogue is preferred to monologue. | | 2008-02-13 | If I were a single unemployed old man who lives on Comprehensive Social Security Assistance (CSSA) | | 2007-12-17 | Is forecasting a pure guessing game? | | 2007-12-16 | I want zero emission of CO2! | | 2007-11-30 | How would I choose universities for exchange? | | 2007-11-28 | Excuse me. Can you write a recommendation letter for me? | | 2007-11-12 | No pain, no gain! | | 2007-09-14 | Teaching is to be enjoyed, and so is studying. Grades should only be secondary. | |