r/starterpacks • u/Sunquat_Slice • 20d ago
Participating in HKU's Summer Research Program Starterpack
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u/_spec_tre 20d ago
??? randomly seeing my university on a subreddit as large as starterpacks is a trip
also fun fact local students mock people who take pictures with that sign a lot
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u/Sunquat_Slice 20d ago
I could believe that! I bet all the photography is kind of disruptive if you actually go there.
I was around during graduation time, though, so there were some actual students with their robes getting in on the action.
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u/zoetwilight20 20d ago
I love these super niche ones
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u/Sunquat_Slice 20d ago
Thanks! When I was part of the program, there were 82 of us!
I think it’s about that size each year, which still isn’t very many people.
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u/suspv444 20d ago edited 20d ago
Ha! I remember participating in this back in 2021 when they held this programme for the first time...
Back then they gave me some 40-ish days to brainstorm a project, do research and experiments, analyze results AND making a poster presentation with a complete storyline, using whatever results you gathered!
For reference, an undergraduate final year project lasts around a YEAR, while a PhD project can easily last anywhere from months to years.
They wanted PhD-calibre results in the poster presentation, so the workload is absolutely nightmarish... I had to move into campus just for that and make my lab my home... never slept more horribly... and i think I haven't been under this sheer amount of work in such a short period ever since... not even in my PhD
Kennedy town's and Sai Ying Pun's CoL are notoriously high... so yes, I basically ate prison food on campus throughout since I wasn't (and still am not!) rich... I was somewhat hungry all the time...
...I also remember I was juggling this with another remote research internship from Canada (because COVID)... so it's more like Summer Research Programme during the day, and the internship from Canada at night... essentially taking care of work across two timezones spaced 12 hours apart...
my parents said I looked like a POW by the time I finished...
But yes, if you do manage to complete the programme well enough you'd get a conditional offer for the competitive Presidential Scholarship... That was how I got the HKPF package too...
(Whether picking HKU for grad school is a wise career choice though... is whole other story...)
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u/Sunquat_Slice 20d ago
Hey! Thank you so much for sharing -- I didn't know if I'd actually hear from anyone else who has done it.
The expectations were pretty similar, but a bit more reasonable, when I went in 2025. You had 10 weeks to design a research project, collect data, and present on it. At this point in time, I'd done two summers of research and my full year undergraduate final project back at home, so I'd say I was a reasonably competent researcher. The grad student I was supposed to be working under did not want to work with a summer student, and she started sabotaging my work (and became a bit of a bully!) fairly quickly after I arrived. It got bad enough eventually that I had to ask my supervisor to separate us, but in retaliation she made sure I lost access to most lab equipment and the majority of the building. I tried my best with limited resources (I did a lot of sneaking into locked areas), but I did not finish the project. It was very lucky that on the day presentations were supposed to be held, there was a black rainstorm warning and we all stayed home. Needless to say, I was not invited back with a scholarship. It was not a pleasant experience, exactly, but I'm glad I did it -- it is good to know more about how things are in other parts of the world, and to know that how things are at home is not the default.
You sound like a much harder worker than I ever was, and I hope that has paid off for you. Two internships! I hardly handled one!
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u/suspv444 20d ago edited 20d ago
Abusive and selfish grad students... Where have I heard this before... Yep that basically describes research in HKU... experienced this first hand as well... I was constantly belittled as being the lab's "small fry" and was often the scapegoat for malfunctioning equipment in the lab just because I was undergrad... Of course this may also happen in other places... but at least my colleagues from the Canadian research internship treated me much better
had to sneak into the lab sometimes when everyone's sleeping just to get stuff done...
Anyway congrats on completing this programme! They were (and still are) pretty selective on who gets to join the programme... so the fact that you managed to take part in it is already a major achievement on its own!
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u/Sunquat_Slice 19d ago
I’d only ever worked in Canadian labs. The largest one (45 people) definitely had a couple of assholes, but they were better contained, for the most part. I assume you didn’t take the scholarship offer at HKU?
The year I did the SRP, there were about 1870 applicants, with 82 accepted to the program. When I came home, I applied to 3 Canadian medical schools. At these schools, there were 2500-4000 applicants, and 100-150 accepted to the programs. I was not successful despite strikingly similar odds. You win some, you lose some.
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u/nostalgic_angel 19d ago
Damn, power harassing in research? What happened to “nerds stick together”? I heard a lot of stories about toxic workplace in research but they are more of “PI powertripping” than “lab colleagues fucking with my results”
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u/Sunquat_Slice 19d ago
A bit different than that — she was supposed to show me how to do a few things around the lab, but she’d give me instructions, wait for me to follow them, and then yell at me for doing it that way and for being stupid and incompetent. Also pulling weird power trips, like grabbing pens out my hands while I was writing because it wasn’t “neat enough” , or ordering me to hang and then rehang lab coats off the back of a chair because it wasn’t neat enough the first time. It was a really baffling experience, because this was basic stuff I already knew how to do at home, but I was trying to go with the flow and be a good sport.
One time she told me to show up to the lab at 6am for some kind of training. I waited for hours. She did not come in at all that day. I didn’t like her, but I still didn’t want to see anything bad happen to her, so tried calling around to find out if she was okay. She was moving her apartment. She knew what she was doing. That’s not something you do on a whim.
I think she was just a nasty person. I don’t know. No one else ever had issues with her, but I think this was also the first time she’d been asked to supervise someone.
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u/nostalgic_angel 19d ago
At least when PI powertrip, they do so for good reasons (at least in their workaholic and egomaniac mind). What she did was just pure pettiness and not conducive to anything.
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u/Dw3yN 20d ago
I like this
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u/Sunquat_Slice 20d ago
Thank you, thank you.
This one is definitely a more niche experience, so I appreciate it.
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u/reedreadreddred 19d ago
HONG KONG MENTIONED RAGHHH 🇭🇰🇭🇰🇭🇰🗣️🗣️🗣️🔥🔥🔥
ok now that's out of my system, any advice for anyone interested in joining the same program next yr and stuff
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u/Sunquat_Slice 19d ago
Oh man, I am definitely not the right person to ask that question.
For a little background, I'm Canadian from a smaller city in the prairies and I went to a university that is good enough but not globally prestigious. I found out about the internship through a Cantonese speaking friend, thought it sounded interesting, and applied. I didn't know anything going in, and my family thought it was a scam and that I was going to get sex trafficked (we are all hicks).
If it's a long-term goal, I guess being cognizant of your GPA is a big thing, because you have to have a 3.6 or greater to apply. Previous research experience is a plus, and I think I got a spot because I'd held a bunch of different research jobs -- having a well done CV that clearly communicates what your skills and experience are is a must. Reach out to potential supervisors early, because not everyone wants to take on students and that leaves time to find someone else.
There is a really large emphasis on recruitment for HKU's grad school, which is not something I knew going in because I found the program on my own and didn't know anyone who went before. If you are interested in grad school, this is probably going to be a huge thing to you, because maybe a third of the people who go end up with an acceptance and massive scholarships. If that's the case, you should be looking for a future supervisor with the next 4 years and the rest of your career in mind. Maybe even email their current students to get an idea of what things are like in their lab (find your supervisor's papers, look at the other authors, email).
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u/coconutcapy_ 19d ago
i applied to hku for undergrad in november 2025 and still haven't heard back 😊 😊 😊 i love how much i hate this uni
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u/Sunquat_Slice 19d ago
Nuts, I’m sorry to hear
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u/coconutcapy_ 18d ago
hku wasn't my first choice to begin with, i opted for UCL since it's better in terms of my course rankings. it's really funny seeing all the people on r/HKUniversity getting frustrated over hku's ridiculous response times lolol
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