Goodluck to UPCAT takers

When I took the UPCAT held at the University of Nueva Caceres, I was totally your typical provincial girl.  I remember that not everyone had the privilege to take the exam then in the high school that I went to.  I guess there were just ten of us. There were some standard aside from the scheduled fee in order for one to have the chance to take the entrance test.  I learned all these way later on.  It was either I was oblivious or totally innocent of the on-goings then.

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I only cared about going to UP.  I remembered one time in the basketball court of my high school, I and my friend Santiago were having conversation of our youthful aspirations.  I told him that I would go to the University.  I knew there was certainty in my voice because as I said those, I had my thoughts took me to the grounds and the premises of that University.  I was among its students rushing towards their classrooms, some girls chatting with their fancy getups, while others don baggy pants and rather very simple shirts and pants.  While I imagined myself…that time all I could imagine myself was that I had a rag bag.  And I knew while we were talking that I had that smile on my face. I will and I would and I should.

Although I wanted so much to spend college education there, when I left our town, I looked like a devastation. I thought I would be tagging along my brother in the nearer city, in Ateneo and still be with many of my friends.  But, the school cost a fortune.  As I sniffed and whimpered at the back of  the car, I thought of the scholarship and the subsidy the state university offer.  I focused my thoughts on those and I felt a bit better.

The school’s premises weren’t so ideal.  It was plain stupidity on the filing of my application  that I ended up not in the campus I had in mind.  That was my provincial girl stupidity. (Not that I have any bias to provinces or anything.  This is just me.)  So, I and my friends thought later on of transferring but only one of us actually did.  We were left rather comfortable already.  So when I had a chance to graze the other campus, one which had “that” university spirit in my head, instead of feeling bad of my retaking of cursed Math, I was rather happy.  Or ecstatic.  I was inspired all the time the entire summer and I thought, wow, I had my dream come true.  And the best part was, I only had to pay P41.00.  That was it.  My education was almost free!  But that took me writing several letters beginning with “To whom it may concern” and had in the body “..scholarship I deserve in view of the fact that…”  addressed to the University Registrar.  Not to mention my working as student assistant in the University Resource Center in Faura.

College life was indeed one of the best and it was because of the chance I had, to be independent, to be responsible and to be youthful.  I owe to the training I had in and out of the campus, the better person that I had become today.