Businessman George Ong Kai-hin vividly remembers the passion that motivated him throughout his four years at the Polytechnic University. 'At times I felt that even sleeping was a waste of time,' he said.
Fourteen years after graduating with a first class honours degree, Mr Ong is chief executive officer of AxiSoft (Asia-Pacific) and responsible for 180 employees across the region - and he advised students following in his footsteps to savour every moment.
'University life is short - you only have three or four years,' said Mr Ong, 38, whose former university's faculty of engineering is celebrating its 70th anniversary. 'My advice to any student is to enjoy yourself, and have a passion for studying and learning. If you don't, then in 10 or 20 years' time, you will look back and regret it.'
With an unashamed rush of nostalgia for his undergraduate days, the businessman added that it was 'a wonderful time, and I have a lot of good memories. If you can have a passion for one or two subjects or projects, it will be something you remember for your whole life'.
Even for a star student like Mr Ong, Polytechnic University life wasn't all plain sailing, particularly in his 1989 freshman's year. 'I tried to play hard and spent all my time enjoying extra-curricular activities. It was quite a scary experience. I almost didn't make it to year two,' he said.
As a computing studies undergraduate, much of what Mr Ong learnt has been overtaken by technology. What his time at Polytechnic University gave him, however, was the ability to learn things by himself and the discipline to manage his time - skills that have served him well in his successful business career.
Mr Ong graduated more than two decades after Dr Ir Tso Che-wah completed a five-year part-time day release course at Polytechnic University, then known as the Hong Kong Technical College - but there are similarities in some of the lessons in life that both men took away with them upon graduation.