SETBACKS Are a part of life, but Sandy Choi Pin-pin has proved that optimism and determination can overcome failure.
Although she had to repeat Form Seven, the 23-year-old final year undergraduate has just been given the honour of the Most Outstanding PolyU Student 2005 by the Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU).
After receiving the trophy from university president Poon Chung-kwong, Ms Choi told the audience at the PolyU's Outstanding Student Awards presentation ceremony that she had contracted pneumonia in Form Seven.
Although she recovered it affected her studies. She scored low marks in the A-level exams and repeated a year to get a university pass.
She dreamed of becoming a doctor when she was young, but her below-average performance at secondary school made her give up that idea. She thought of other careers, but while suffering from pneumonia she looked into her heart to find what she really wanted.
'I asked myself why I wanted to be a doctor. I realised it was because I wanted to cure and take care of people, and that even if I wasn't a doctor I could still be a nurse,' recalled Ms Choi, who enrolled for the PolyU's nursing bachelor's degree.