“We don’t want to leave, but this city hasn’t given us a reason to stay.”
This was said by a graduate student from the Materials Science department of a Hong Kong university before leaving Hong Kong to join a new energy company in Shenzhen. Her experimental data was once accepted by an international journal; her project results were supported by the Hong Kong government’s innovation program. However, in the end, her achievements were confined to a PDF, while she boarded a train heading north.
She is not alone.
01 “Top chip design student turns to selling sea view apartments” is not a joke, it’s reality
Some students have reported: before graduation, they were still debugging Verilog code in the lab, and after graduation, they were discussing “the down payment for a Kowloon Tong property is only 20%” at parties.
This is not an individual’s life crossroads, but the collective fate of students from the Hong Kong Polytechnic University in recent years.
Data shows that Hong Kong Polytechnic University ranks among the top 30 globally in the QS rankings, with advanced laboratory equipment and internationally leading research results. However, the entire manufacturing sector in Hong Kong accounts for less than 1% of GDP, and technology-related jobs are no more than 5%.
This means: after studying engineering in Hong Kong for four years, you may end up not finding a single job that matches your field.
More realistically, 30% of graduates head directly to Shenzhen, 20% go to Singapore, and half remain in Hong Kong but end up in banks, real estate, or consulting firms.
Students who once participated in chip projects are now working in real estate agencies selling properties; PhD graduates from the Materials Science department are taking their research results to production elsewhere; Master’s graduates in microelectronics hesitate for a long time when receiving bank offers, ultimately deciding to leave Hong Kong—simply because they “don’t want their four years to be in vain.”
What choice do you give these students? Stay in Hong Kong and wait for the manufacturing industry to take off? Or switch to finance and put their expertise in a drawer?
02 “Studying engineering = wasting four years”? The real issue is the city’s “industrial hollowing”
You might think they just haven’t found the right method, but in fact, they haven’t found the right city.
Hong Kong’s technological research and development is indeed strong, and policies like InnoHK are indeed promoting it, but the problem lies in:the complete lack of a pathway between research and industry.
Students involved in developing a high-sensitivity sensor, which performs 30% better than market products, ultimately find that due to the lack of local trial production capabilities, their work can only remain as experimental data.
A certain joint internship program only accepted one candidate, prioritizing those with five years of experience—recent graduates have almost no opportunities.
This is not about students lacking strength, but rather the city not being prepared to harness their professional value.
You can control your child’s professional path, but if you can’t control the city’s industrial structure, all efforts may turn into “air drops.”
Ultimately,it’s not that the children aren’t ready for employment, but that the city isn’t ready to embrace them.
03 Is the profession worthless? No, it’s just that you chose the wrong way to land
To solve this problem, it’s not about forcing children to switch fields, but rather helping them understand:leaving is not failure, but self-rescue.
In Nanshan Science and Technology Park in Shenzhen, almost every hard-tech company is hiring engineering graduates from Hong Kong universities; semiconductor companies in Singapore are offering salaries 30% higher than those in Hong Kong to attract talent; even some Shenzhen companies have set up “direct access positions for Hong Kong graduates,” where project capability alone can secure a job regardless of educational background.
This is not “escaping,” it’s “redirecting.”
Some students have said: doing research in Hong Kong is like raising fish; no matter how well you feed them, if the water dries up, the fish can’t survive.
So what to do? Change the water source, change the pond, and continue to raise fish—rather than switching to becoming a real estate agent.
Therefore, what you need to do is not to make your child “persevere,” but to help them see clearly:which places can harness their professional value; which paths can realize their investment in abilities.
Professions are not worthless; it’s just that the city hasn’t kept up.
04 The path is yours to decide, but please don’t let them be trapped in a city that isn’t prepared
If you still think “as long as the child is good at their profession, they can develop anywhere,” you may be underestimating the destructive power of structural mismatch.
A chip engineer in a place without a chip industry ultimately becomes a craftsman with no place to apply their skills.
A PhD in materials science in a city without manufacturing plants, no matter how many papers they write, is just “spinning their wheels.”
No matter how straight the road you pave, if the child doesn’t walk it, it’s useless; no matter how glamorous the city you choose, if there’s no industry, it’s all in vain.
True career planning is not about planning a profession, but about planning a viable path.
I am Uncle Mai, willing to accompany you to see this path more clearly and walk it more steadily.
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