Staff writer
When Wilmer Lau graduates from UBC this month with a degree in electrical engineering, he will take with him much more than the lessons he learned in the classroom.
Lau is one of a growing number of engineering students who took advantage of UBC's academic exchange program and spent the 1995/96 school year studying at the University of Hong Kong.
"It was mind-blowing," says Lau, who grew up in Vancouver. "I was not prepared for how different it would be."
After four months of struggling to adjust to the physical and cultural differences of life in Hong Kong, Lau made friends with student staff members at the university newspaper. Those friendships quickly brought him closer to the people of Hong Kong and their culture.
On June 4, 1996, he joined his new friends and 20,000 others at a memorial event in Hong Kong for the victims of the Tiananmen Square tragedy.
"That memorial was like a spiritual awakening for me," he says. "We live in Generation X -- the youth with no soul, no purpose in life. They grew up with this one event that affected them so deeply."
In the process of preparing for the exchange, Lau spent hours researching courses he could take in Hong Kong and be assured transfer credit. Ultimately his efforts paid off. Following eight months of study in Hong Kong, he got a job working with a University of Hong Kong professor. In the course of the job he became so familiar with Java, a flexible programming language popular for Internet use, that he ended up teaching it to employees at the Hong Kong Bank and Hong Kong Telecom.
His employment interests lie elsewhere, however. As a participant in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Dept.'s co-operative education program, Lau has amassed months of work experience with a number of companies including Clearnet, a wireless telecommunications company. His experience helped him nail down his interests and he's now looking south of the border for work in wireless communications. He's already been flown to San Diego -- twice in one week -- for interviews.
"The co-op program has made my employment opportunities 200 or 300 per cent better. And, if you look at my transcript, you can see that my grades improved steadily as my work experiences increased my interest," says Lau, who earned first-class standing in his final year.
A change of scenery is more important than the promise of higher wages in Lau's decision to look south for work. Although a move may decrease the amount of snowboarding he can do, he will still be able to indulge in his passion for dragon boat racing.
"There is no question my years at UBC have had a major effect on me. I'm far more socially and politically aware than I was a few years ago. And although I'm still doing a lot of soul searching, I have more direction now than ever before."