Started from the bottom, now we’re here.
TERM GPA: 3.500
Words are not enough to express how happy I’ve been since Monday night. You’ve heard it right: I made the first honors dean’s list for the second time in six terms!
Cue in the celebration!
Many reasons can suffice why I can say this one’s got to be the most rewarding among all the times I’ve been in the dean’s list. To begin with, expectations weren’t so high for me since I only had 12 units and it was also perpetually my last chance to successfully shift to a degree program. Second, my subjects were challenging most especially STATLIT and PHILOPE. I was supposed to take up SPANTWO but I was shifting out so I dropped the idea. Lastly, it was my chance to step up and prove naysayers I can strike on my own.
In the middle of the term around February, my chances of making into the DL were very slim due to the staggering difficulty of my classes. One afternoon over lunch while stressed out with all the readings assigned to our class due two days later, I confessed to my friend how lucky she was for she got the “chill” professors which could possibly guarantee her being a dean’s lister by term’s end. My remark made her raise eyebrows signaling disagreement towards. Immediately she responded, “You can do it! Come on, you survived Velasco in INTFILO, why not PHILOPE?” Truth to be told, initially I was horrified with PHILOPE when I heard comments on my prof about how she gives low grades despite doing exceptionally well in her subject. Nonetheless, I was able to maintain my academic standing with the help of my peers and professors. The same went for PHILOPE as I was able to reap good fruit from the subject in contrast to those comments I’ve heard several weeks prior.
The bottomline is, an achievement is worth celebrating when you know it was not given to you by the delivery express. Basically speaking, an award is earned not given. A sad reality coming from this is there are people who seek shortcuts only to be able to bargain the praise of others. Who would you rather be: a student who gets into the honor roll because her professors gave away high marks notwithstanding their mediocre learning experience, or a student who does not have the most stellar marks yet immerses those lessons in everyday life?
In line with my words, this is a living proof that nothing is impossible. Never ever rely on first impressions. Looking terrific on paper pales in comparison to showing the world how passionate you are with something. All those sleepless nights, little to no social networking involvement, once a week blogging in Tumblr, and hours of counting sheep - everything was worth it. Cheers. Bad times aside, I would love to repeat this school year over and over again. I am so looking forward to my junior year.
