44-year-old Zhang Yonghui is in charge of the security work of University of Electronic Science and Technology of China (UESTC) in Chengdu. But on June 29, instead of being a security staff of the campus, he will attend the UESTC as a student who will get his master’s degree.

Zhang was a soldier before he retired from the army and got the job as a security staff at UESTC in 1999. Zhang took advantage of working in a university and finished his undergraduate study between 2005 and 2009. In 2013, Zhang convinced his family and began his graduate study of public management.

Thanks to his years of working on the campus, Zhang has built a great relationship with many professors, teachers and students, and it went very smooth for his thesis. Zhang successfully sent out 520 surveys and got back 491 valid ones for his thesis.

Zhang says he will keep on working as a security staff for the university. Degrees are just a way for him to improve himself and broaden his horizon.