The Centre for Languages and Inter-Communications (CLIC) at the University of Cambridge will offer a 3-hour intercultural communications workshop for HKU STEM students. Participants will have opportunities to reflect on their own communication style and the challenges posed by collaborative work across borders, as well as network with students in the UK. The workshop is part of Common Core’s Future Readiness initiative to build the workforce of the future.

Date/ Time:

Wednesday, January 26, 2022
5:00 PM to 8:00 PM (HKT)
Online via Zoom

Available for all undergraduate students enrolled in STEM-related programmes.

Register now at https://forms.gle/NBWwaYsYdbLC1Ugf9. Limited spaces are available.

Zoom link will be sent to you upon confirmation of your successful selection.

More about the workshop:

“Global mindset,” “cultural intelligence,” “intercultural competence” … no matter how you want to call the skills that are necessary to successfully interact with people who might not see the world like you due to culture, geography, background, age or other factors, they are paramount in the industry. Engineers and scientists need to be experts in their field (hard technical skills) but without the ability to influence, negotiate, build trust, lead, communicate ideas to different audiences (soft skills, also referred to as power skills in a recent report), projects have a much smaller chance of succeeding. When in an intercultural setting, have you ever struggled with your peers’ style of communication, wondered why some people seem to use more formal language, be more direct than others, or perhaps less flexible with time than you are accustomed to? Culture plays a big part in how we communicate and enhancing communication is so much more than choosing to speak the same language.

In addition, remote learning mode brings further complications to the equation. The challenges of video conferencing such as the ‘Zoom fatigue,’ the caveats of written communication (emails or text messages), or practicalities of working together across different time zones, add some extra pressure on the already vulnerable intercultural communication.

In this new pilot workshop in partnership with the University of Cambridge CLIC, we will allow 10 students from each institution to take part in an interactive session in which you will have opportunities to reflect and learn further about the following topics:

1. What and why can go wrong in international collaboration
2. What is culture and how it goes far beyond nationality
3. What are culture dimensions including group vs. personal preferences
4. What is intercultural competence and how to become immediately more effective in intercultural communication
5. What is good practice for successful remote collaboration