The 400m Lap: The First Year Retrospective as a CICTzen
Initially, I chose to be a part of this college and course with the intent to pursue my interest in hopes of making use of my passion and skill outside of hobbies and while I still harbor the very same idea, I came to make new experiences out of it. One school year later a lot has happened; from school to social interactions, good and bad moments, to even outside experiences. A lot happens that needs to be written before these details are lost, only to be remembered as the aching feeling you can’t quite recall. This is about my experiences as a CICT Student for one year.
To start, I knew learning wasn’t going to be easy, but my first experiences coming into this can be summed up as the experience of trying to ride a bicycle. If you are aware, the school follows a bi-semester format, a school year with two semesters with inter-semestral breaks if required. In these two semesters, the first half is like riding a bike with training wheels, and the second half is riding a bicycle without it.
The first semester was a fun experience, with a bit of bumps but nothing too difficult. I suppose the hardest subject I’ve faced during those 18-ish weeks is “Reading in Philippine History” where learning it was not easy for me but I managed through. I’ve learned that me and my friends’ experiences in “Computer Programming 1” are different from one another but to me, it is a fun challenge to experience, making codes as a group was something we had yet to face until the finals for the first semester happened. It seems that I can’t do it alone and it certainly needs more than two people to make a well-working program.
Funnily enough, I only stuck with known friends/acquaintances during the first half of the first semester until I met my classmate chilling in the library one day where everyone except us two was present for a class that did not happen. I suppose we hit it off and made the experience more fun than before. It didn’t make the first year any easier but it made my time there less stressful and much more for me to look at fondly, something I am uncertain would occur if I weren’t a part of CICT.
The second semester was an interesting experience, with a lot of bumps on the road, as well as the many unplanned events that have occurred, especially during the final stretch. For once I have grown accustomed to the new major-related subjects but on the lesser general side, it’s only gotten harder to comply in time. Unlike last semester, I have made friends to belong and made my time fuller than ever but still, it is quite an order to comply with all deadlines in time. It didn’t help when for an entire month the weather went against all records just to simply make life not worth working for. That series of high heat made work all too difficult to continue. But despite the difficulties, I managed.
This semester is interesting for another reason: a lot more socially involved tasks, as many of them require working in groups which is interesting to do. One is a project to make a circuit using gates, another is about coding a working program, and another is a term paper. It helped getting to know more about my peers, how they operate, and the ideas they conjure.
Away from the academics are the events and organizations I participated in here, for every event is as fun as the last; some I participated in or even won like the time I won the Sudoku contest or got second place in the University Puzzle League during the Math Fun Day but lost on Tower of Hanoi. Sometimes I participate in events as a helper for the youth organization I joined, LINK.exe, creating products or keeping an eye on selling products. Unfortunately, my time helping with LINK.exe is limited nearing the end of the school year due to piling unfinished works but when next time rolls around, I plan on changing that.
Outside of the contents of school, I learned some life experiences along the way, as my life outside of school has improved drastically. Never would I thought to reconnect with my friends from two towns over, or that I would take on a new hobby but I have done these more often within these 8-ish months than the entire 18 years prior and I hold no regrets. It wouldn’t be possible without the friends I’ve made in this school, the teachers who taught and kept me motivated to pursue the course, and my family for letting me try and do what I aspire to do.
All in all, I have learned a lot from joining this rabbit hole in just one year. The good, the bad, the ugly fact that I don’t have a bicycle to bring to school. But no experience is smooth sailing as this story of mine is with its bumps, more so with the fact I had unfinished business to be dealt with in the second semester but when it is all done and dusted, I can prove to myself that I can deal with it. I made friends, branching out from existing ones, and made new memories while visiting old friends with new stories to tell. And lastly, I have learned more outside of just the academic learnings of a student of Computer Science.
I am grateful to be here and I plan to make the most of the three more years that will happen like a 400m track to be run 4 times; It’s only the beginning after all.
