Zou Weimin stood out among all the other students who sat for China’s national postgraduate entrance exam, which took place in late December 2018. He is grey-haired and in his late 70s, while most of his peers are in their early 20s.

However, this was not his first time taking the exam. The 78-year-old man from east China’s Zhejiang province was making his sixth attempt to pass the exam, determined to get a postgraduate degree.

Since childhood, Zou has been in love with reading, but he had to quit school to make a living. He tried different jobs, working in sales, warehouse management, and teaching, yet he never gave up on his dream of going to college.

In 2003, at the age of 63, Zou took the “gaokao,” or National College Entrance Examination, for the first time, following the lifting of age restrictions for taking the exam in 2001. He then enrolled at Shanghai University of Medicine and Health Sciences, becoming the oldest college student in China. 

In 2012, Zou was admitted into the Environmental Engineering Department at Jiaxing University. After graduation in 2014, he began his next challenge: passing the national postgraduate entrance exam, which lifted age restrictions in 2013. Zou has taken the exam six times so far in pursuit of his goal of studying at the postgraduate level.

“If I stop reading, I will feel empty. People must have ambition. One is never too old to learn,” Zou said.