This opening address was delivered by Margarita Ann M. Kare, batch salutatorian, during the 5th Commencement Ceremony of the Junior College Batch 2022 held at the Li Seng Giap Auditorium on July 16.
Photos from the baccalaureate mass and commencement exercises may be found after the opening address.
Dr. Marion Magsino, Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences; Ms. Margeaux Valdez, Junior College Program Director; members of the Management Committee, dear parents, esteemed faculty, guests, graduates, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to greet all of you a good morning and extend a warm welcome to today’s commencement ceremony.
To my batchmates, congratulations—we made it!
Just yesterday, I was panicking. The government imposed a month-long lockdown on Metro Manila, and I haven’t felt more anxious and uncertain in my life…just kidding. That was not yesterday; that was two years ago when I was only 15 and didn’t know 90% of the people in
this auditorium. As I was writing this speech, it hit me quite hard how so much has happened since 2020. Everything went by so fast, and yet how I wished I could go back in time and relive what most would say are the “best years of your high school life.” However, people also say that time waits for no one, so regardless of what I wish for, time moves in only one direction: forward.
Nevertheless, looking back, I can proudly say that junior college has helped me prepare for the struggles of college life. I was pushed out of my comfort zone: joining orgs, pursuing leadership roles, taking on ordinary tasks, and doing them extraordinarily well. I grew in confidence and built genuine relationships, which, I don’t deny, was hard at first.
When I first met my block mates and org mates, I was taken aback by how much more diverse the student body environment is compared to my old school. It took some time to adjust, and, along the way, I had to learn the importance of empathy by understanding that everyone was
going through something, in one way or another, in acknowledging that we were all raised differently by different people, and in listening to the different perspectives of the unique individuals that make up this batch.
Junior college introduced me to such a diverse but wonderful group of people, and I am thankful I was able to be my authentic self with them. I learned empathy in recognizing others’ values, goals, and principles, without losing sight of my own.
With all that I’ve learned, the message I would like to impart is not of achievements, of reaching for the unreachable, or of plowing through struggles. We’ve all heard this too many times. As we move forward in our academic journey, I would like to share with you what I constantly told myself throughout Junior College: slow down. Slow down, not by slacking off and becoming complacent, but by being kind to and empathetic with ourselves. But how can we do this? Empathy, after all, is a way to connect with and understand the feelings of others.
Well, let’s be honest. We’ve often forgotten to be gentle with ourselves. We have been taught, since Freshstart, to “Keep Moving Forward” as time does, and to be immovable by all else. Our junior college years may have trained us to improve much more than we had in junior high, but each year in college is bound to be more challenging than the next. We may feel compelled to compromise our physical and psychological well-being for our academics. Some people will tell us to keep moving forward, even if we feel a mental breakdown brewing inside. When it comes to that point, stop moving forward, because that’s precisely how car crashes happen–they go past the speed limit.
In the years to come, we’ll face low points: we’ll have more terror profs and even fail more exams. We will feel more pressure to go beyond what is expected of us. Let’s stop and slow down. Take things one step at a time. Keep moving forward but not past the breaking point. Time moves forward, and naturally, so should we. But in the end, we still have the freedom to decide the pace we want to take.
Good morning once again, and congratulations Batch 2022!
More photos from the Junior College Program’s baccalaureate mass and commencement exercises:
Banner photo from Steven Arenas on Pexels.
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