I’ve always wanted to give a graduation speech but, as fate would have it, that would never really happen. In the eyes of any university administration, I would probably be just another average college student and seemingly unfit to receive such a privilege. But that’s okay.
But a few days before graduation, as I found myself sitting in a bar surrounded by familiar college friends, I found myself taking a step back from drinks and conversations to look around and soak in the fleeting moment. It would be moments like these that I would ultimately remember when I would look back into college. I realized it was always these seemingly unexceptional moments that I had learned most from and I would eventually end up missing most. After all, the greatest lessons are never found in the classroom or in books.
So a way befitting our generation and in a the most millennial fashion, let me share with you 10 things I’ve picked up from college, not from lessons in the classroom and long readings, but from the everyday moments and decisions I faced during my stay our the university. (I promise #10 will blow your mind. kidding.)
1. Make the seconds matter
My university, De La Salle university (DLSU), prides itself for taking on a trimestrial system instead of a semestral system. This would also mean a much more fast paced life with professors shoving as much knowledge and requirements as they can down your brain for roughly thirteen weeks. There’s never really much time to settle in a term. By the time it becomes familiar, you’re already enlisting for the next term. It works both ways, I guess — both as a good and bad thing. Having nothing last forever (lol) means the most sleepless of terms will inevitably end, but would also mean that the best experiences you’ve had would also quickly turn into another memory posted on Facebook and/or Instagram. I’ve learned that the good old days we know have often passed before we realize that they were the good old days. And so, we must treasure the moments and try to make each second count. After all, we’ve all seen how those 10, now 15 minute, breaks between classes can make all the difference in passing an exam or how those random long breaks would lead to some unforgettable spontaneous adventure.
2. But take your time and create your own path.
While we strive to take advantage of every second in our fast paced and adventure filled journey, I’ve also learned that it’s okay to take your time in the path that you’re forging. I’ve been delayed a year from graduating from expected because I had shifted in my sophomore year instead of my freshman year partially because of the lack of pre-requisites and partially because of the uncertainty of shifting into organizational communication, a course that didn’t exactly have a traditional or clear career path after college (i bet a lot of you reading are wondering what on earth is organzational communication). In my sophomore year, I had taken up only 12 units every term and decided to wait until I was allowed to try shifting into a course that was considerably hard to get into. Though some saw that move as impractical, I never did regret making the decision to stick to waiting a year to shift instead of just sticking to my current course, which I wasn’t really content with. That year of waiting allowed me to do a lot of things and immerse myself in so many opportunities. And I ended that year with a firm resolve that organizational communication was the course for me. So if you’re one who didn’t graduate “on time” and weren’t “on track” whether by choice or cruel fate of a grade of zero, rejoice because that was a year or two more of allowance than the others. kidding. But really, forget the pressure of everyone telling you to be practical. Also forget the pressure of our generation to find something you love to take on as your life’s purpose. You wouldn’t be you if not for the timing of the universe. Besides, there’s beauty in not knowing and discovering. Sometimes all it takes is a little more time.
3. Time you enjoyed is never time wasted. Go live a little.
I’m sure I’m not alone in saying that I’ve spend a considerable amount of every night procrastinating in college — and by considerable amount, I mean almost all night. But the thing is, except for crazy all nighters, I don’t really remember much about toiling over the workload. What I do remember is those nights I spent to talking to a friend all night who would eventually be a big part of my life, days cutting class and going out on spontaneous trips that left me with new experiences, or those random adventures that takes you the equally random of places. Never belittle the adventures you had or the time you spent on talking to someone Facebook or laughing on Twitter all night when you should have been more “responsible” and doing something else what you were supposed to be doing. In the end, these moments not only make us sane from the amount of things we had to deal with from school and our personal lives combined but because it’s when we put down what we’re doing down that we see the beauty of what is around us whether it be the people around you or how beautiful the sky is as you look up in the amphitheatre. These are things that we often miss out amidst our stress. It’s also in these moments when we chose to procrastinate and do other things that a lot of great things happened in our college life. It’s always good to shake up routine and open up yourself to a to the opportunity of living a little or more than a little. In hindsight, going out to drink that night when I had OJT at 8am the next day was worth it, and I’m pretty sure cutting PERSEF that day was the best decision ever. After all, college life isn’t always about school work, and I have a strong feeling life after college isn’t really all about work anyway.
4. Some of the happiest moments are those of goals fulfilled.
I’m pretty sure a lot of graduates would consider graduation to be one of their happiest and proudest moments in their life thus far. And while I don’t really get the hype of being thrown into the real world, it’s not that hard to understand. Looking back into college, finally reaching a goal after so much struggle has always been some of the sweetest memories — like finally passing that class you failed before, finally getting approved in thesis, finally talking to your crush, finally finding a spot where MyWifi worked, or whatever you goal was. Graduation has always been every students’ common goal and now we’ve accomplished it. Today, we feast and drink and be happy. We deserve it after all. And tomorrow, we hunt for jobs, which so far has proven to be harder than expected. But I wouldn’t worry about that too much, I’m sure it’s just another goal we’ll end up fulfilling. After all, they do say that the harder the struggle, the sweeter the victory.
5. Treasure the people around you, who carry their own stories.
Perhaps what we don’t immediately realize is that the people who we spend our college experience with ultimately plays a big part on how the whole journey goes down. College is filled with the most diverse people with their own diverse stories to match. It’s interesting when you walk down a hallway or walkway in school and realize that all these faces that pass you by have their own story to tell with their own crosses to bear. A few of these people’s stories will become intertwined with yours perhaps for a moment as a seat mate who helped you get through a boring class, or perhaps as a season with a course mate you took majors together, or maybe a lifetime as a close friend who you know will become ninang or ninong to your children. These people whether as blessings or lessons, not only play a big part in helping us survive college, but they would ultimately help shape who we are now. They say the five people you spend the most time with greatly influence you. So go ahead. Look back and think who were those five people who influenced you and at the same time you influenced in your college life. It’s nice to think that as we part ways, we’ll be carrying a part of those who you were closest with in college. But let’s make sure to thank everyone else who was there in our college life for even minor characters in our college story affect us more than we know, especially that guy in group work that did everything.
6. Keep fighting until the last minute.
I remember the first time I’ve watched a DLSU-ADMU game live back in my frosh year in 2011 with my blockmates. If you’re a UAAP fan, you’d know that DLSU lost that game. I even remember ADMU leading by 20 points at some point. But what I remember most back then was how the crowd, while obviously disheartened and aware of the eventual outcome of the game, cheered the team on. The team with the crowd fought until the last minute though hope seemed lost. Being a UAAP basketball virgin back then, that stuck to me. In 2013 however, I would find myself in the MOA Arena watching a very different Green Archers take the championship home to Taft. That story would replay itself over and over in college beyond UAAP basketball. This can be seen in students like myself finding themselves almost failing a class, but managed to somehow pull a Hail Mary and survive because they refused to go down without a fight and even in org events when things get logistically tough but the org chooses to push through to make a successful program or project with very little of the student body knowing how chaotic it was behind the scenes. If college taught me something, it’s to never make quitting an option and keep fighting until the last minute because there’s always something you do can do to turn things around or make things better. Because in the end, tough times don’t last but tough people do.
7. Say yes to opportunities and try not regret to those that didn’t go so well.
Be it those conventional opportunities we usually think of that goes along the lines for self-improvement and big achievements or that of opportunities to go travel or even that of getting to finally talk to your crush, I’ve learned saying yes opportunity is usually the best course of action. I’ve learned that taking too much time to overthink, analyze, calculate and recalculate and then deciding on what to do and then doubting that decision and then going with it eventually spoils the opportunity all together. And think about opportunities: they don’t always come a second time around. I’ve learned that chances are you’ll feel much better if you tried rather than doing nothing and thinking about what could have been. Besides, the pay off of an opportunity that works out is usually higher than doing nothing. But of course there will be a lot of times that you screw up with whatever opportunity you took so much so that you wish you had never been so stupid to take whatever opportunity in the first place. I’d be a hypocrite to tell you not to regret it because I regret so many things. Perhaps regret is inevitable especially when we don’t understand why things didn’t turn out as they did. But we can always try not to regret it too hard and take comfort in the fact that we tried and perhaps there’s something better our there for us. I know that doesn’t actually sound comforting but trying is all we can really do in this world and not trying would be equivalent to not living.
8. Remember the world outside.
It’s no secret that DLSU is one of the best universities in the Philippines where some of the best go. But it’s also no secret that it thrives in a little bubble along Taft Ave., where outside the gates of the university is the chaotic streets of Manila that highly contrast what comfortable lives of those go to DLSU are used to. This, I’d like to believe kept me and many other students grounded. It was a reminder that that there was always a real world outside our bubble that we needed to face and needed us. While we learn about what should in the classroom, we see that right outside it’s far from ideal. And after all, we are Lasallians for God and country.
9. In the end, do what you want to do.
College is time of self-discovery where you try to figure out who you are and what you really want to do in life. If you’re like me, chances out you’ve gone asking so many people for their advice on what course to take, on what elective to take, on what career you should go for, what do you reply to your crush, and what not in the hopes of trying to figure things out. And on the other side of the coin, there’s always going to be someone telling you what you ought to do with your life. Like they say, everyone seems to have an idea of how others should live their lives but never they their own. Your parents might be pressuring you to go be a lawyer or take up medicine. The uncertain future combined with other’s “life stories” might make you question the course you took. The real world pressures can start weighing down on to settle for a job that you might not even want. But in the end, college has taught me that in the end, you ultimately have the last call. It’s okay not to know. Follow your passion anyway. So after filtering out what everyone has told you, do what your heart tells you and take the calculated risk. The heart may be stupid but it is honest. Do what you want to do because in the end, no one else will regret a decision someone made for you but you. Or worse, you’ll end up regretting a decision you never made and leaving yourself with that “what if?” that our generation fears of most. It’s important that we define things for ourselves and live a live by our own personal standards because our definitions is will ultimately steer us for the rest of our lives.
10. The grass is greener where you water it.
The reality of my journey in DLSU was that it was never an actual choice for me back in high school. I would often joke that UP was the lover too out of my league and Ateneo was my first love, as I after all was expected and perhaps brainwashed to love the Ateneo and inevitably go there as all my siblings have. But God would have other plans with me as DLSU would eventually being my true love. I hated having to go to DLSU at first. DLSU was initially a constant reminder of my failure and defeated ego — so much so that I even planned to transfer after my first year in college there. But lo and behold, I’m about receive my diploma from DLSU in just a few days. DLSU crept up on me. It wasn’t hard to love this university. At some point I had gotten tired of holding on to my failure and have opened up myself to DLSU — the amazing people, the life changing experiences, and immense opportunities. So forget the saying that the grass is greener on the other side, because in reality, the grass is greener where you water it.
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As a disclaimer, everything I’ve said has really no basis but my own meandering college journey based on the everyday unexceptional experiences and perhaps my need to justify my four years for struggling for a diploma. But I’d like to believe that the most beautiful things in life are of the everyday phenomena that we never really notice. As we were going through our college journey I’m sure not one of us never really understood what anything would mean in the greater scheme of things. But as Soren Kierkegaard once said (of course every graduation speech has to have a cheesy quote): “Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.”
Bene Santiago
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