Bulletin Number Five 1985

Many of the programme's graduates find their first jobs in the teaching profession, and in recent years more than half o f the graduating geography majors have found work in secondary schools. Others have entered the civil service, in such fields as housing, urban planning, country park management, administration, and data processing. Smaller numbers have taken up positions in business and industry. Each year several graduates choose to continue their studies in the Geography Division of this University' s Graduate School or in other university geography programmes, or in fields of applied geography. The MPhil programme allows advanced students to capitalize on the exceptional features of Hong Kong's economic and geographical environment. It aims to provide its students with a sound background in the philosophy and methods of the discipline, together with the advanced level o f knowledge in a field of specialization expected of postgraduate students. To this end the MPhil students take required courses in geographic thought and in advanced methodology, and specialize in one of three fields: urban-economic studies, China studies, or environmental studies. Aside from taking courses, students devote much of their second year in the programme to thesis writing. Research Activities Staff members of the Department have a long tradition of active involvement in research. Until mid- 1982 the former Geographical Research Centre under the Institute of Social Studies and the Humanities served as the principal sponsor of research programmes in Geography. This Centre has been merged wit h other research centres under the new Institute of Social Studies, but staff of the Department continue to maintain close links with the consolidated Institute, notably through the work of its Centre for Contemporary Asian Studies, which presently is directed by the Chairman of the Department. Much of the research work carried out by the Department's staff first appears in its Occasional Papers series, which enjoys wide distribution among overseas departments and university libraries. Begun in 1980, the series now includes eighty papers on a variety of geographical topics. The Department has taken a special interest in the changing economic and social geography of China, particularly the effects o f China's 'open-door' policies on the spatial pattern of urbanization and economic growth in South China. Since 1980 staff of the Department have been studying the Special Economic Zones (SEZs) of China, especially Shenzhen, Geography students observing crystal growth in the new geology laboratory RECENT DEVELOPMENTS 27