UST General Santos (GenSan) will open the Academic Year 2024-2025 alongside the Manila campus on Aug. 9, according to a calendar released by the Office of the Secretary General.
The Mindanao campus, set to welcome its first batch of students, will host traditional Thomasian onboarding activities similar to those at UST Manila.
The inaugural Mass and lecture, known as Misa and Discurso de Apertura, will be held on Aug. 2 to mark the beginning of the Academic Year.
Thomasians at the Mindanao campus will attend the Discurso de Apertura in UST Manila virtually, Professor Emeritus Maribel Nonato, the assistant to the rector for UST GenSan, told the Varsitarian.
Freshmen orientations will include local sessions for each academic unit from Aug. 1 to 2, with the traditional “ROARientation” set to be held in two formats: virtual on Aug. 5 and in-person on Aug. 6.
Paskuhan festivities are scheduled for Dec. 21, a day after UST Manila’s celebration.
UST GenSan’s calendar includes two local festivals: the Tuna Festival on Sept. 5, celebrating GenSan as the country’s tuna capital, and the Kalilangan Festival on Feb. 27, commemorating the city’s founding anniversary.
The week-long Undas break at UST GenSan will start a day later than in Manila, running from Oct. 29 to Nov. 4.
Registration for Term 2 begins on Jan. 10, 2025, with regular classes resuming on Jan. 13.
The campus will observe a week-long Easter break from April 14 to 21.
Registration for the 2025 special term will take place from June 6 to June 9, with classes starting on June 10.
UST GenSan will not follow the government’s return to the old school calendar, where basic education classes start on July 29, and will instead adopt UST Manila’s hybrid learning mode.
The new campus expects over 400 freshmen students in its inaugural academic year, offering five programs: BS in Accounting Information Systems, BS in Entrepreneurship, BS in Industrial Engineering, BS in Medical Technology, and BS in Pharmacy.
The results of the UST Entrance Test for UST GenSan will be released on June 15.
