Dear new students,

Welcome to the UM family! Over the next four years, this university will be your home. As you will soon discover, choosing UM may be one of the best decisions you have ever made. To help guide you on this new journey, we have put together this handbook which provides the essential information you will need as a UM student.

Like all of us, you no doubt feel a surge of pride upon seeing our new campus, with its state-of-the-art facilities. But the breathtaking beauty of our campus is only the visible part of what makes us so proud of this university.

The real beauty of our university is the care that has been put into designing an education that you deserve. As you leave high school to begin life as a university student, you will encounter a number of significant differences. University students, by definition, are intellectuals with a self-imposed sense of responsibility towards themselves, their society, their country and the world at large.

Everything that we do here is geared towards preparing you to fulfill this noble role, including our “4-in-1” education model which promotes discipline-specific, general, research and internship learning, plus community service and peer education. Such an approach, obviously, upends the traditional concept of classroom-based teaching and learning.

The university is a place of ideas. What separates the average students from outstanding ones is an insatiable curiosity and the will to discover. This is what thinking people do. This is how you learn to excel.

At present, the University of Macau has entered a new era. The university has made every endeavor to leverage its strong foothold in Macao, develop the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, integrate with national development and go global. We have nurtured numerous citizens and innovators who love their home country, possess global perspectives and competitiveness as well as a strong sense of social responsibility. As Macao continues to go global and as its premier university, we, students, staff and faculty all must have a global orientation. I am confident that you are ready to meet this challenge and take advantage of the many opportunities on offer.

Again, welcome to the University of Macau and I wish you a rewarding experience!

Professor Yonghua Song

Rector