If ever I was given a chance to deliver a graduation speech, the following would be heard from me.
For 18 years or so that I have been studying, I have been a scholar of my parents ever since. Some of us here maybe a scholar of a certain company, or some may have had acquired scholarship grants from government agencies such as DOST, and the like. Just the same, all of us gathered here inside the PICC Plenary Hall are all scholars. I believe that not only the graduates rightfully deserve the applause. Now, it’s high time for our parents to be recognized, for their hard work so that they would be able to pay for our tuition fees, and for being able to keep their patience with us.
When I was younger, my father used to tell me how important education is. He would always tell me that education must be treasured more than the earthly possessions in this world. And yes, being once enrolled in the Philippine’s top private university, I could definitely say that such words from my father and being a scholar has put some pressure on my academic standing in some way. However, pressure should not be the effect that one would get. Rather, being a scholar of your parents and such words should have inspired you to do your very best. As Mark Twain have put it, “I have not interfered schooling with my education.” And when such pressure is present, we would tend to interfere schooling with education. Such situations would radically change your principles from being the-one-who-would-stick-to-learn to the-one-who-would-aim-to-score-at-all-costs. At some point in our academic life, we were once the latter but of course everybody here in this room would still prefer the former, ideally speaking. Let me tell you a part of my academic life where I chose to be the former despite of the risks involved. When I was in second year college, I took the hardest subject of my entire college life, and it is known by the course code QUAMETH. I studied real hard for the exam, and prepared for one week. Imagine, I got a failing grade at my first exam., a grade of 24 percent. It was such a depressing grade, knowing that you prepared one week before the exam. And so, I doubled time for the second exam, and prepared two weeks before the exam. Still, I failed. However, my grade went up to 56 percent which is still down by four percent from the passing mark. And then finally, I needed to get a very high grade at the last exam. And thus, I studied real hard and I was able to get a grade that I rightfully deserve. I thought that I was going to fail, but to my surprise, I got 2.0 which is way far from the 1.0 that I have been praying from the night of the final exams for QUAMETH were over until the Course Card Distribution Day. My grade may not be that high, but I have learned a lot from such experience.
I have learned that one should learn from his/her downfall by learning to get up. Like the ones who are being crippled, they would continue walking using their crutches. After some time, they can walk without using their crutches anymore. We may have been crippled for several times before being able to come up here on stage, get our diploma and shake our hands with the present DLSU system President, but then, we managed to get up and sometimes, we really have to learn some things the hard way. All of us here, whether graduating with or without honors, we are all Christian Achievers for God and Country.
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