Although Wu Chun-wei's (吳俊緯) English language skills were restricted to the 26 letters of the alphabet when he graduated from junior high school, he never gave up.
On Saturday his dedication paid off when Wu graduated at the top of his master's degree program and received an award for being an outstanding student.
Wu has also been accepted into a program at National Taiwan University's department of electrical engineering.
As a child, Wu, who grew up in rural Yunlin County, never had any interest in books and he had no idea what vocation to pursue.
After his finishing junior high school, he didn't take the entrance exam for senior high school and failed the exam for vocational school.
In the end, he found a place at a private senior high school where he didn't have to take an entrance exam.
After being accepted in a department devoted to automotive maintenance and repair, he received technical and vocational training and decided to become a mechanic.
After graduation, however, he learned that one of his friends from elementary school had been accepted as a medical student at a university.
This made Wu feel that he had accomplished nothing, so he made up his mind to start studying harder.
With the help of his older sister, Wu went to cram school to prepare for the university entrance exams.
However, because of his educational shortcomings, he had to study at a cram school for three years to reach a level where he could finally pass the exam.
Wu said that when he first started attending cram school he had no idea what the teachers were talking about and sometimes had to stay up studying until 3am in order to keep up with his fellow students.
Finally, after three years, he was accepted in the automotive repair engineering program at National Taiwan Normal University's (NTNU) department of industrial education.
Having worked so hard to get into university, Wu was strongly motivated and while other students enjoyed university life, he studied in the library.
The hard work paid off and after four years he earned the highest score on the entrance exam for the master's program at NTNU's department of mechatronic technology.
He continued to work hard and after spending most of his time in the laboratory, he now has three microelectromechanical system packaging patents pending.
Wu's teachers were impressed by his efforts and research results and recommended that he apply to enter a doctoral program at National Taiwan University (NTU).
Living up to their expectations, Wu was accepted by NTU's department of electrical engineering as well as by the department of mechanical engineering.
In the end, he decided to study electrical engineering.
Wu himself said that he is more proud of the process that brought him to what he has achieved today than of the fact that he is of the actual achievements.
He also said that one must never be afraid of being slow, but only of not moving at all.
"I was stuck in one place for too long, treading water, going nowhere. Don't be afraid of being slow in the beginning -- only fear not being able to make your mind up," he said.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching