TWO THOMASIANS turned unexpected decisions into national feats after securing top five spots in the October chemical technician licensure exams.
Mayumi Calpotura is a recent graduate who tackled her most challenging subjects head-on, and Paolo Robert Bueno is a longtime faculty member who decided to take the test on an impulse.
The chemical technician board exams cover analytical and organic chemistry — ironically, the very courses in which Calpotura had earned her lowest grades in college. Instead of shying away from them, she treated the exam as a personal challenge.
“It was sort of a redemption for me. I was like, ‘Okay, for me to get better at those two subjects, might as well take that board exam and get that extra license, right?’” she told the Varsitarian.
Calpotura first considered the exam an afterthought, something she could take alongside her chemical engineering boards. Only a week before the test did she realize it was “actually kind of a big deal.”
Her study strategy didn’t rely on strict schedules or color-coded notes. Rather, she depended on what she described as her lifelong habit of “moving based on interest.”
“I don’t study from morning to night. It’s just kapag trip ko. But I’ve always been innately curious. Organic chemistry shows you how tiny changes create entirely different compounds. I love seeing how things work.”
Calpotura, who also led the Faculty of Engineering’s Pautakan team to back-to-back championships in 2024 and 2025, said the toughest part wasn’t mastering the content but remembering to rest and maintain her health.
Just behind Calpotura, at No. 5, was Paolo Robert Bueno, a 2013 BS Biochemistry graduate and part-time faculty member in the Faculty of Pharmacy.
His batch belonged to an older curriculum that’s no longer eligible for the chemist licensure exam, which he called a lingering “ghost” that followed him through graduate school, a Ph.D., and his teaching career.
“Try ko i-take itong isang board exam. That can [also be] a way for me to gain an ID. Motivation ko is to actually have something that is for myself. That is the ID,” Bueno told the Varsitarian.
Because he focused on his teaching duties, he had little time to study and relied mostly on practice sets shared by his students. Still, his experience teaching laboratory courses gave him an advantage.
Bueno discovered he had placed fifth while serving on a thesis defense panel.
“Maybe God actually paved the way for that,” he said.
As an educator, he hopes his accomplishment inspires students and colleagues to step outside their comfort zones and pursue growth.
“I think my students will actually see that as ‘Kung si sir kaya, baka kayanin ko din’ in the long run. You always have to believe in the greatness of what is, what God has given us,” he said.
A total of 52 Thomasians passed the chemical engineering licensure exams, where UST recorded an 89.66% passing rate.
