The Chinese University of Hong Kong is a research-oriented comprehensive university founded in 1963 with the mission to combine tradition with modernity and to bring together China and the West. Its eight academic faculties and graduate school offer a full range of undergraduate and postgraduate degree programmes. The University is unique among Asian universities in its college system. Its nine residential colleges complement the formal curriculum with a variety of non-formal education and experiential learning opportunities to its full-time undergraduate students. Emphasis on general education, bilingualism and multiculturalism, and an extensive network of overseas partners for student exchange are characteristics of the educational experience at CUHK. It is also unique among Hong Kong universities in that there are Nobel laureates and Fields and Turing awardees among its faculty members.