Our reporter Liu Youting
"Worker's Daily" (August 19, 2022 Edition 05)
Passing through the lychee forest on the campus again, Wang Dakun stopped and looked up, only to see a string of red and bright fruits, dotted among the green leaves.
Under the tree, on the bench, she seemed to see her 34-year-old self, holding an English book, memorizing words, and calculating the correct answer again and again in the wrong math book...
Wang Dakun is a staff member of the School Guard of the Security Office of Guangdong Shenzhen Vocational and Technical College and the mother of a 3-year-old child.
This year, she succeeded in the postgraduate entrance examination and was admitted to the Harbin Institute of Technology for a master's degree in public administration.
"No matter what position you are in, as long as you have a dream, you can go after it!" The sun shines on her blue security uniform, which is so dazzling, just like the confident smile on her face.
Step by step to your favorite industry
In Wang Dakun's view, as long as the dream is still there, hard work can be achieved, no matter how many turns in the middle.
Engaged in the education industry, Wang Dakun has been pursuing.
Since college, she has worked part-time jobs related to education, such as tutors and employees of education and training institutions.
After graduating from university in 2012, Wang Dakun started a business for a year in his hometown of Suizhou, Hubei, but was unsuccessful.
Later, she entered a central enterprise, started as a clerk, and became the director of the department office.
After trying it, I found that this was not a job I liked, so I quit my job and became a middle school teacher for a year.
Due to family reasons, in October 2015, Wang Dakun resigned as a teacher and came to Shenzhen.
When looking for a job again, she still chose to return to the campus - becoming a member of the school guard of the Security Office of Shenzhen Vocational and Technical College.
As a civilian security officer in the training department of the school guard, Wang Dakun is mainly responsible for formulating training plans, event planning, official document writing, publicity, and trade union activities.
Although she has been engaged in security work over the years, her "dream of education" has always been in her heart. For this reason, she has never given up on improving herself.
During her work, she won the second-level certificate of human resources management division and the qualification certificate of high school Chinese teacher, and gradually approached the industry she liked.
In March 2021, Wang Dakun began his intense preparation for the exam.
"The idea of taking the postgraduate entrance examination has always been there. It was not until last year when the baby grew up, that he could let go a little bit, and that he could make time to review, and then I put it into practice."
While working and taking care of the baby, one has to prepare for the exam. Wang Dakun said bluntly: "It's really not easy. You can only use fragmented time, get up early and go to bed late to review."
"Work normally during work hours, and study after get off work." Every morning at 6:00, Wang Dakun gets up and memorizes words. After sending his children to kindergarten, he goes to the office at 7:40 and continues to study until 8:30.
"Get off work at 12 noon, have a quick meal, and spare more than an hour to read books and do homework."
Wang Dakun told the "Workers Daily" reporter that after leaving get off work at 5 pm, she basically went home at 6 o'clock in the first half year of preparation for the exam, and after the National Day last year, she studied in the office until 11 o'clock in the evening.
"The weekends are mainly used for studying. After I send my baby to the morning class in the morning, I go back to the school office to read."
Dealing with work emergencies increases the difficulty of preparing for the exam
For Wang Dakun, among the exam preparation subjects, mathematics and logic are the most difficult.
"I haven't touched it for a long time, and I forgot all the knowledge points." Wang Dakun said that there are too many questions, the calculation is too difficult, and there is simply not enough time.
To this end, she also signed up for tutoring classes.
In order to get familiar with the knowledge points, Wang Dakun has done the real questions three times over the past 10 years.
After finishing the work, she also collected the wrong questions, printed them out, and formed a set of wrong questions. After understanding them one by one, she did it again twice.
Wang Dakun's work often has many emergencies that need to be handled urgently, which often disrupts her study plan and increases the difficulty of preparing for exams.
In Wang Dakun's view, the school guards must maintain campus safety, involving all aspects of work, such as the classified management of construction workers, canteen staff, property personnel and other personnel, campus traffic management, and how to collect express delivery for faculty and staff.
"Affected by the epidemic, the workload of the school guards has also increased. Sometimes they have to support the gate, and sometimes they have to work overtime on weekends." Wang Dakun took the school as an example. In the past, the gate work only needed to check the student's admission ticket. Body temperature, viewing Yuekang code, nucleic acid test records, itinerary cards, etc.
In addition, it is necessary to separate the examination area from other areas of the campus, formulate plans, personnel allocation, and layout of the examination room, so as to ensure that the normal order of the campus is not affected.
No matter how busy he is at work, Wang Dakun has never shaken his dream of postgraduate entrance examination.
Deciding to take the postgraduate entrance exam, Wang Dakun set a goal for himself - to pass the exam once.
"If you are determined to pass the test, you can only rely on hard work." Talking about the "secret" of the success of the First World War, Wang Dakun said with a smile, the nine months of preparation for the test are basically in a "battle" state.
"There are nearly 5,500 English words in the exam syllabus. Others recite it once, but I recite it 5 times." In this exam, Wang Dakun handed in the English paper half an hour earlier and scored 82 points.
With a total score of 300 points, she scored 213 points in the test and was admitted to the public management major of Harbin Institute of Technology.
Security isn't just "gatekeepers"
"If you want to do it, you must go all out, and don't have the mentality of giving it a try." Wang Dakun shared a short story at work.
In 2017, she was responsible for participating in the "Shenzhen Women's Civilization Post" on behalf of the School Guard Women's Squadron.
Although he received the task of preparing the materials after 4:00 pm, and the time was very short, Wang Dakun was still reluctant to "get it done" and stayed up until after 2:00 in the morning to prepare the materials.
With the joint efforts of her and the female team members, the female squadron of the school guard brigade of the school security department successfully won the "Shenzhen Women's Civilization Post".
In Wang Dakun's view, security work is far more than just a "gatekeeper".
"Our service targets are mainly teachers and students, so that they can spend four years of campus life in peace and learn more knowledge to serve the society." She believes that young people are the backbone of the future of society, and their safety is not only related to millions of families happiness is related to the development of society.
"As long as there is a dream, it is never too late." Wang Dakun never believed that the age of 35 would be an insurmountable gap in her career.
She plans to choose education management, a sub-field of public administration, in her second year of graduate school.
After obtaining a master's degree, she will continue to move towards the "dream of education".
The reporter learned that Wang Dakun's women's squadron mainly had high school education when they first arrived at the Shenzhen Vocational College. At present, 3 people have obtained college degrees, 5 people are studying colleges, and 3 people are studying undergraduates.