He claims that as a child he was totally without any form of overriding ambition, and while attending the Joint College Entrance Examination, he wrote on his application form seventy or eighty departments, and was finally accepted as a student in the earth sciences department of the newly founded College of Chinese Culture.
他自稱「從小無大志」，大學聯考填了七、八十個志願，最後落在當年新創的文化學院地學系上。