30 January 2011

UST @ 400

University of Santo Tomas just turned 400 years old.

And because as they say that 400 years is a long story, I'll lead you to my alma mater's history here. In this blog entry I will pay my own personal tribute to my home of four years in college.

I don't have a fairytale story why I ended up at UST. During my time, the most in-demand career choice was Nursing. I never saw myself as a nurse so I've had that already crossed out early on. My cousins who were in the IT field expected me to take up an IT course. But I didn't. I took up the UST Entrance Test and I didn't pass my first choice which was Advertising (I'm pretty sure it was because of my poor drawing skills). So next in line was Journalism.

I've always wanted to write. I loved leafing through magazines in highschool. It made my Journalism course easier to love. But in senior year and during my internships, I found a new love in the news industry. I was now more interested in current events than cutesy features stuff.

But more than the realization of what I wanted to be, UST gave me other things. It prepared me to the 'real life' I have now. Everything I wanted to become in my career, I'm slowly getting it because of my education of four years at UST. I've also had many experiences, firsts, and unforgettable moments that I happily look back, or snort at, that all happened at UST. It will take another entry to note them down.
And all these four years of various experiences are much more fun to look back because of the people I've experienced it with. They say you meet your best set of friends in grade school and high school. While it may be true, I also found great friends worth keeping in my college years. It's been like seven years of highs and lows with these people. They may not be there all the time as I am not there all the time, too. But they're just a text message, or a Facebook chat and a tweet away.Character-wise, my four years of education taught me values and personal ethics that I have with me today. If any, alright. Teehee. Kidding aside, UST also taught me to dream, and not just dream, but to dream big. In highschool, I was so carefree and comfortable that I didn't think of the future (Heck, I wasn't even passionate in getting into college). Most of my dreams and ambitions all happened once I was at UST. And I wasn't only full of dreams, I also learned to work for it. Thank you, UST. No doubt you're still around, 400 years later.