Minor in Sustainability

Introduction

Sustainability is an emerging discipline that provides students with insights into the balance between human development and ecosystem services. Most professions nowadays require expertise in sustainability stewardship and practices. Sustainability covers broad issues from individual lifestyles to business, technology, and the environment, while incorporating the disciplines of hard sciences, social sciences, economics and policies. The Minor in Sustainability is designed to instill the knowledge, values and skills related to sustainability in our students, and fulfils our strategic commitment to foster interdisciplinary learning and sustainability education at HKUST.

Intended Learning Outcomes

Upon completion of the Sustainability Minor, students will be able to:

• Analyze the developmental issues from a sustainability perspective
• Apply the learned knowledge and skills to their professions in driving more sustainable practices in their careers
• Adopt a more eco- and socio-friendly approach and system thinking mindset and values in formulating solutions to the sustainability challenges in their careers
• Assume and commit a strong stewardship towards sustainability

Eligibility

Except for those studying in the BSc program in Environmental Management and Technology, any undergraduate students with an overall CGA of 2.5 or above may enroll in this Minor Program.

Curriculum

To graduate with a minor in Sustainability, students must have enrolled in the Minor Program and complete a minimum total of 18 credits and all of its requirements, as well as the requirements of the major program of study.

For credit transfer, students can transfer a maximum total of 6 credits to the Minor Program.

Out of the total credits required by the minor program, at least 9 credits should be single-counted within the minor and are not used to fulfill any other requirements for graduation except the 120-credit degree requirement.

Students may use no more than 6 credits earned from courses offered in pure online delivery mode to satisfy the graduation requirements of a degree program. This 6-credit limit does not apply to credits obtained through the credit transfer procedures of the University.

Some courses in the curriculum have been previously coded with CORE-prefix where the special CORE-prefix has been replaced by the domain code of courses starting from Fall 2023-24. Students who have registered with these CORE-coded courses may look up their latest course codes by consulting the conversion table published on the Common Core website.

Required Course (3 credits)

Elective Courses (15 credits)

5 courses from the specified elective list, out of which at least 1 course taken from each of the areas and at least 2 courses at 3000-level or above. Students of the 2022-23 intake and onwards may not use CIVL 1150 to count towards Area 2 of this elective requirement.

      Area 1: Skills and Competencies

      Area 2: Values and Perspectives

      Area 3: Knowledge

Enrollment Period

Students must declare their intention to enroll in the Minor Program no earlier than the first regular term of their second year of study but no later than the last day of the add/drop period in the first regular term of their final year of study.

Enrollment Schedule & Application Procedures

Enrollment Schedule in the Academic Year 2024-25

Application Procedures

Interested students should submit their application through an e-form RR-37 Declaration/Withdrawal of Undergraduate Minor Program and upload their latest unofficial transcript downloaded from SIS. The application result will be sent via University email by the Academic Registry.

Enquiries

Division of Environment and Sustainability

Tel: 2358 6927

Fax: 2335 9317

Email: sustminor@ust.hk

Office: Room 4412 (Lift 17-18)