WEEKS ago I rummaged through the junk under my bed in an attempt to come up with a semblance of organization in my neglected quarters. I found the usual: unused textbooks, dog-eared test papers and other school projects, and old photocopied handouts, and, yes, an armada of dust bunnies.
As I examined each memento for any trace of value, I got myself thinking: from which of these courses did I actually learn something? From how many of the courses I took in my entire stay in the University did my parents get their money’s worth?
As I delve more into that question I remembered the first column I wrote for the Varsitarian and my age-old battle against classroom boredom. In the end it is a question of how willing you are to put up with daily monotony to filter out the seemingly inscrutable data that lurks behind what’s plain gibberish to your ears.
Anyway, I surmised, I must have learned more in my two years in the campus paper than in four years in the classroom. Not to give absolutely no credit to the University or the faculty members. A good number of professors have influenced me, but it does pay to get involved in a University-wide organization. For one, you cannot just rely on classroom education to get the so-called holistic development the real world demands, so joining and being active in an organization could be the best kind of education there is, provided you don’t slack off in your academics. After all, you entered the university to earn a degree.
Either way, I encourage everyone, especially the freshmen to join organizations and to advocate something. You’ll be surprised with how much more you’ll learn apart from what’s in between your professors’ ears.
Everybody knows what awaits us after college — the future, which is often summarized into the trite _expression greal world h of course. A place where all we were taught in school are put to the test, where virtue outweighs wit, and where the clever are separated from the charlatans.
Most of us, however, still can’t get over the end of school. For the lucky among us, student life is as carefree as one can get in this world of complications. School, college in particular, is also where you meet perhaps the best people you’ll ever meet. Then again, college bestows the most mentally excruciating and stressful moments a student can only envision in a nightmare, sans the pajamas, on a school day.
Nightmare or no nightmare, college is over. And for a 21-year-old fresh graduate, there’s nowhere to go but to keep on moving as if things are getting better. Besides, the future is overrated.
Moving on also means leaving something, or someone, behind. And now that we have come to the maudlin but necessary close of this final column, I bid the readers of the Varsitarian adieu. To everyone I met in my stay in the Varsi, and to the people who helped me get through those two years, sources, interviewees, secretaries, security guards, to name a few, thank you for sharing in the V’s mission toward the truth. To my friends, Kimberley, Elizabeth, and Leah, I will see you later. To my batch mates, in the V and in the University, congratulations, we (haven’t quite) made it! To my “faction” mates, Palo, Shar, and Glai, thanks for everything we shared in such a short time. To the news staff, April, Edsel, Marlene, and Miko, thanks for putting up with me. To my editors, Ate Elka, Kuya TL, Kuya Eldric, and Sir Lito, thank you for making us learn the hard way. And finally, to my family, thank you for just being there and for trusting me with my decisions.
Like many other Varsi amihan who have graced the pages of this publication, I owe to the Varsitarian the person I am now. What I have learned could never have been taught by any professor, and the people I now know I could never have met in the four dull walls of St. Raymund Building. Above all, the Varsitarian taught me to love my alma mater. Definitely, joining the V was the best decision I had ever made.
