I mentioned, in a previous post, that I participated as a speaker for a career talk organized by our St. Paul (then) College QC batch last November. My batchmates also asked me to write an article on the experience, from our, the alumni’s, POV. Sharing the article here:
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Proudly Paulinian: HS Batch ’89 Pays It Forward
By: Georgette Gonzales
Last 29 November, Batch ‘89 organized a half-day forum with the current junior student body as an audience. Titled Proudly Paulinian, the activity brought together some eight graduates representing eight different professions as career choices. These fields include journalism (Maan D’Asis-Pamaran), medicine (Dr. Teena Talavera-Tiongson), law (Atty. Joanna Divinagracia-Ledesma), education (Ray-An Pronstroller-Manalo), hotel and restaurant management (Natalie Lim), business and fitness (Michelle Candelaria-Lee), politics (Mary Grace Bustonera-Santos) and communications (this writer). Atty. Patty Sison-Arroyo headed the activity with Christine Panopio assisting during the presentation.
Each speaker’s fifteen minutes on the microphone brought out several useful pointers but the most poignant include the following:
- High school life is hard. College life is harder. The real world harder still. Stop whining and complaining and learn instead to cope so you have a firm foundation of values and principles that will help you make sound choices in the future.
- Never lose any opportunity to learn something new. Always be on the lookout for learning opportunities. Never settle for puwede na.
- Ideally, what you take up in college is the profession you should end up in. However, it is very much possible to be in a different profession than what you studied for. Bottomline? You need to graduate. You need a college diploma, or at least a certificate. That’s key to jumpstarting your career. But wherever destiny wishes to take you, do whatever you like and be the best at what you do.
- There is no such thing as being boxed in. Your being an average to below average student, unpopular, popular, at the top of your class, or whatever you are experiencing will not go on until you grow old. Although we each had our own ambitions in our youth, not many of us could actually see clearly what we would become or where exactly we would be.
- We’ve all lived Christ-centered lives as taught to us by our teachers, most especially the nuns that ran the school. We say our prayers, attend mass, work with the church. We know our religious obligations by heart and try as much as possible to do right by them. We strive to live a life that would never put us in a bad light. We strive to do things that will never intentionally harm, physically, emotionally, mentally, any person. We respect everyone (hopefully, we have not lapsed) – an elder, a peer, a subordinate – so we can command respect ourselves.
- St. Paul’s Catholic education has taught us more than academics. We also learned core values that built our characters as responsible adults, responsible career women, responsible family women. We may not have been exceptional students. But through our Paulinian education, we must have made exceptional choices as we grew older which made us who we are now.
Hark, daughters of the great, St. Paul, we, Silver Jubilarians all, look how far we’ve come. We hope we have made our alma mater proud.
Mabuhay, Batch ’89! Happy 25th Anniversary!
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