Woman pursues post-graduate study with son

A 49-year-old mother has passed the national post-graduate entrance exam, and will soon become a first-year graduate school student like her son, People's Daily reported.

Yuan Mengyuan, a receptionist at an international student dormitory at Shanghai Jiaotong University, used to watch her son while he did homework, but later the method was not helpful. So she started reading beside him. When her son entered college in 2015, she decided to go with him and study together with him.

She collected course information from Shanghai Jiaotong University's website and audited Chinese and English courses for three years. Her age made her stand out among students. After knowing her intention, teachers and students welcomed her and encouraged her to join the class discussions.

"I got a lot of inspiration from auditing different courses and developed systematic learning skills," said Yuan.

When her son decided to prepare for the post-graduate entrance exam, Yuan wanted to accompany him too, so she started her own preparation from early 2018, when she began working as a receptionist.

The biggest difficulty was English. "The memory at this age isn't that good, but I didn't give up. Repeating words again and again was my only solution," said Yuan. She has been reciting English words for 700 continuous days. She communicated with international students in English to practice her listening and speaking skills and finished more than 500 sections of online English and politics courses.

She is about to open a new chapter in her life in Guangxi University, majoring in teaching Chinese to international students. Her son will attend Fudan University.

"As long as you work hard, life will surprise you when you least expect," said Yuan.