I somehow ended up in New York Times Square’s tallest billboard

…and other things I say when I meet someone for the first time

5 min readOct 30, 2023

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The first few words that came out of my dad’s mouth when I received my acceptance letter for an American university (as someone living on a small island in the Philippines) were,

“Sorry — but we can’t afford this.”

So I did what anyone in that situation would do: I designed and built a website looking for sponsorships.

The accompanying video for my website launch.

Because of this, the mayor of my city sponsored a portion of my tuition!

and then I usually go:

Helloooo, my name is Carl 🇵🇭, a sophomore at Minerva University.

I study in one country per semester.

I have spent a year in San Francisco 🇺🇸 and four months in Seoul 🇰🇷.

I am currently in Germany 🇩🇪 for the winter. You’ll then see me in Argentina 🇦🇷 and India 🇮🇳 for my third year. I’ll finally top it off with Taiwan 🇹🇼 and London 🇬🇧 for the last.

I’ll then be returning to San Francisco for a month to graduate.

The reason? Minerva’s global rotation program.

I’m a Computer Science Major and a Neuroscience Minor working towards non-invasive Semantic Decoding and/or Agriculture Robotics.

How were your assignments graded?

I have a long (informal) history with design. I started with graphic design because back in the Philippines, essays were graded on:

The content (50%)
The border design (50%)

I sucked with arts and crafts, so I turned to Canva (2016).

Opportunities opened up and snowballed from there (in chronological order):

Brand designer (freelance [old portfolio site] — 99d)
Design for Creative Social Media Marketing (volunteer)
ThePremierePro-AfterEffects guy (hackathons era)

These led me to my first UI/UX Internship at Symph! Thanks to the team’s trust and culture, I eventually became a full-time Creative Front-End Developer pioneering Webflow and no-code solutions.

No Coping Mechanisms were Harmed in the Making

Before I talk about getting to time square, let’s do a rewind.

Before Minerva, I was already a full-time designer in high school working at an established startup foundry, where I helped the top businesses in the Philippines.

However, I’ve always wanted to pursue research and development.

In my final year of high school, I sought international education. I took the IELTS English proficiency test and the SAT. The Philippines didn’t have free access to it, so I had to spend around $600 for both tests.

I was about to be accepted at the University of British Columbia. I even got into their four-year, fully-funded undergrad scholarship!

Well, partially. I was on the waitlist.

That felt like a stab to my heart. I felt like a failure.

So my coping mechanism was to do something anyone would do: apply to every available international scholarship.

However, the Philippines did not have such a database, so, again, I did what anyone would do: I created and launched an initiative with a group of nine friends called Padayun Ko (“I Will Continue” in my native language).

**Bonus:** This initiative went on to be integrated into my school. Handled by the Student Government

Because of that, I got to be in talks with other people in the education sector, and good karma returned to me when I heard about Minerva, its pedagogy, and the financial aid that comes with it.

Remember my for-sponsorship website?

It was made in Webflow! Webflow was the reason for my appearance in New York Times Square.

During my time in SF, I got the chance to:

Compete in creating a website in under 10 minutes
Join Webflow Conf 2022 as a scholar, and
Eventually, get into an excruciatingly intense dad joke contest with Vlad and McGuire (photos at the end).