UM Hengqin campus in full operation, fresh start and divergent opinions

Yesterday was the first day of the 2014/2015 academic year at the University of Macau (UM). It also marked the day that the new campus becomes fully operational.
After the bustling new semester school opening in the morning, some students attended their first classes, while others were occupied with registration procedures at the administration building.
The eight residential colleges (RCs) have also become operational, and the new cohort of freshmen has already moved into the RCs. The university welcomed over 1,700 new undergraduates in this new school year. All the new recruits have moved into the RCs, bringing the total number of students living in the RCs to over 3,500.
Going home might be necessary for freshmen who need some time to get over their homesickness.” “I am just going home to pick up something,” a student says. Yet waiting for a bus on a shade-less campus in hot weather is not pleasurable, and the bus stop is not an ideal shelter – every time a bus arrived, a group students, who had been waiting under different shelters near the bus station, in front of the buildings and covered corridors, ran to the bus.
Cheung is one freshman amid them. He has just started his first year of university, and also a new life of living with peers in the residential college. Like most local students, Cheung has been living with his familiy and traveling to school every day since childhood. Having already spent several nights in the dormitory, he has found that life in the residential college is “so far acceptable” for him. “Now I live with one roommate in a room, and we share one restroom with another two students from the room next-door,” he told the Times yesterday. According to Cheung, freshmen are required to live in the RC. Still, there are facilities that are not yet fully ready. “There’s something wrong with the shower facility. Cold water came out when I tried to switch to hot water. (…) And my window can’t be opened.”
Newcomers will never have the same feeling about the “change of campus” as the “old students” do. Mao, a mainland student in his third year, says: “The new campus is indeed much larger than the old one, but now it’s more inconvenient for me to attend classes. I walked a long way from RC to the teaching building, as I can’t take a bus because the bus route leads me in the opposite direction.” Mao told the Times that it takes him at least 20 minutes on foot from RC to the teaching building. Despite the fact that a new bus, No.71, has been established and has begun running between the campus and Praca de Ferreira do Amaral directly, Mao thinks that the distance from the new campus to the Peninsula is too far: “It still needs a (bus) transfer,” he reminded the journalist.
A sophomore surnamed Wu, who is exempted from the compulsory RC scheme, says that the greatest change is the time he spends in traffic. “It takes me at least half an hour per trip to get from home to the new campus,” he says. But he prefers the new facility over the old one, as “classrooms (in the new campus) are bigger. And there are more facilities. (…) In the old campus, sometimes we don’t even  have enough desks and chairs.”
A long queue was observed in the early morning yesterday at the Praça de Ferreira do Amaral, according to local radio. UM Rector Wei Zhao and several other colleagues made a special trip to the bus stops at the Praça de Ferreira do Amaral and the Edifício do Lago in Taipa, in order to gain more knowledge about whether available public transport could meet UM students’ needs. Later a shuttle bus was arranged to take UM students to the new campus.
Vice Rector (Student Affairs) Haydn Chen promised that the school would collect data of peak and off-peak hours and communicate the bus schedule arrangement with the Transport Bureau. Having received reports on problems that have occurred with facilities, he explained that every new building would have some problems upon establishment, which is normal.
On the other hand, some students miss the Taipa campus. A postgraduate student, who spoke on condition of anonymity, complained that students in the new campus are isolated from Macau. “We need to go to Taipa to buy food once a week. It’s like how people living in the village have to visit town every week,” the student joked.
The school expresses in its press release that UM hopes to foster a “biking culture” on the new campus, highlighting time and energy saving. The anonymous student deems the pricey rent for a school bicycle to be too high to afford. “It costs MOP200 each semester, and we have to bear all the maintenance fees during that period. Plus, additional service fees will be charged for each maintenance job.” Not every applicant can rent a bike successfully, given the availability is limited. “As far as I know, there are currently around 200 bikes. I am not sure if there will be more in the future,” says the student.
In this school year, there will be around 10,000 people, including current students, new students, faculty members and staff, working and studying on the new campus. “(…) [This] will bring many challenges for UM in terms of facility management, but UM has the confidence to solve the problems efficiently,” reads the school’s statement.

Grace Yu