“Persisting on practicing one’s interested field is a worthy life”—these are the words to encourage TKU students from a researcher of Academia Sinica, Chen Shui-tein. He always works harder than others because he thinks he is not smart enough. Chen testifies the saying that “diligence makes up one’s dullness” by his example—though he took one more year to finish both junior high school and high school, he acquired a Ph. D degree.

Chen says that he would be a farmer at his hometown originally—as his namesake—“Shui-tien” (paddy field)—if he had not chosen chemistry as his field of study. Chen comes from a farmer family with poor financial status. For working and studying at the same time, he chose to study at the night school of National Taipei College of Business.

The reason why he transferred from business to chemistry major was that when he had a part-time job in the Department of Chemistry in NTU, he met his mentor and helper, Dr. Wang Kuan-tsan, a professor at that department. With professor Wang’s encouragement, he passed the test with the best scores and entered the night school division of Department of Chemical and Materials Engineering, Tamkang University, in 1973, although he only had vocational high school degree.

In the daytime, he worked at professor Wang’s lab in NTU, and went to school in TKU after 5:30 in the afternoon. After 5 years, he finally got a bachelor degree. In 1983, he went to University of Nevada in United States, where he obtained his master degree in Chemistry. (~ Peiling Hsia )