What UP taught me during my [virtual] first year

An anecdote of a former freshie adjusting to their first year of classes during the pandemic

Freshman’s flat lay: The study table | Image owned by Lathala ni Kim

Excitement and frustration

I entered UP like I was a lost cat wandering around Vinzons, only I wasn’t even sure of where Vinzons Hall was. I just knew that there were a lot of cats there from the memes I saw online and from my senior orgmates’ stories.

I was in 8th grade when I dreamt of entering the country’s premier university. Back then, it was the only university that entered the world university rankings. That was the only reason I wanted to enter; people look up to the university so much. It could give me a sense of pride and honor if I could probably enter.

But now what?

Now, UP made me realize just how little I knew, and just how shallow the same reasons were.

My freshman year wasn’t even the way I imagined it when I was in high school. I mean, who would’ve guessed that everyone would be stuck at home, facing the four corners of our screens, instead of the four walls of the classroom. But, here we are dealing with it without a choice.

It was mid-July when my acceptance email was sent. While my mom screamed with joy, I was still processing the excitement inside my head. Up to this point, the excitement still haunts me. Maybe it’s because of the way I never got to step on campus, even before the pandemic. Or maybe because I still don’t have my ID. Nevertheless, I simply prepared myself for how my virtual freshman year would turn out.

Of all the years in the 21st century, 2020 was the year I got in. We were fresh from our PowerPoint graduation ceremony and our college orientation was conducted via Google Earth. Before the pandemic, moments like these were the best to some but the worst for me.

At first, the remote learning setup was fun and exciting, you’re at the phase of getting your UP email account with all of its perks and of course, your much-needed student number. You share a Facebook status update saying, “Started studying at the University of the Philippines, Diliman.” Your family and friends congratulate you, along with your classmates and the professors you’re about to meet online.

You have your hopes up. And you get more and more excited as classes finally start. Maybe I can enjoy myself a little. Maybe, I can make myself believe that I’m really studying at my dream university. Like, this is it: I am living my dream, I made it. My “one day” finally became my “day one.” What I didn’t know was that UP will crush me and will make me question myself. Worst of all, it may give me a lifelong existential crisis.

Salamat, UP! Now, read it backward

Making it to UP may look like falling in love: exciting at first, but will inevitably become complicated in the long run. You’ll get what I’m trying to say when you realize the connection between falling in love and being in UP.

You may even entertain the possibility of not graduating on time; a reality that a lot of UP students face. It’ll crush you when you realize this, especially while you’re an innocent freshman looking forward to finishing your undergraduate degree. After all, you’re from a “prestigious” university, and your family is expecting you to land a job immediately after graduation.

With this in mind, you pressure yourself to study your hardest. You listen carefully to every single topic your professor discusses, even as your eyes water because of the blue-light radiation your laptop gives out. You submit everything on time and coordinate with your groupmates. You even stay up until 5 in the morning, only realizing when your dad is awake to have his morning cup of coffee while you’re just about to sleep.

But after doing everything you can, you still end up having a 2.25. This isn’t enough for someone grade conscious like you. It’s also never enough for your parents who are used to you having almost perfect grades.

While my classmates celebrated on social media, posting perfect unos in most of their subjects, I started to question myself: Do I really deserve to be here?

I started asking these questions when I dropped my Economics class. I’m still traumatized that I paid 30 precious pesos for the dropping fee. I told myself that I need to accept the fact that I needed to drop the subject simply because I can’t cope anymore.

Being a freshman in UP during this setup requires multiple adjustments: adjusting to a new school, a new college, a new remote learning set-up, and the UP academic life. Something which I think is distinct from other universities.

Dropping that class was a relief. I told myself that maybe I can have a better grasp of everything when we get back to physical classes. It turns out that I was crying while thinking about it. I was crying and I didn’t know why. Maybe it was the burnout tears that I failed to pour out because I was studying every hour of the day but still failed my problem sets and quizzes. On the other hand, my classmates said that they got a high score simply by watching Netflix or while playing mobile games.

This will make you realize that your knowledge and intellectual capacity will never be enough, no matter how hard you study. No matter how hard you try, you’re not just there, — yet.

Writer Kovie Biakolo described ‘there’ as a place in the figment of our imaginations; a tangible feeling, and a place where we dream of where our happiness and satisfaction can be achieved. However, the reality of ‘there’ may not be achieved due to different circumstances around us. Like standards and rules that have been set either to be accomplished or not.

In our case, ‘there’ is a good grade. A grade that will make you feel that every hardship pays off. A grade that will lead us closer and closer to wearing our sablays on time. A grade that will grant us a Latin honor, so that we can enjoy the benefit of not taking the Civil Service Exam in the future. A grade that will admit us to our dream master’s and post-graduate degrees, or a grade that will help us enter a good law school or medical school.

However, we may or may not arrive ‘there’ due to the different difficulties we’ll encounter in college, like our interactions with professors, classmates, groupmates, and even in enrolment. There are some things that we just can’t control, but one thing is necessary to reach our ‘there’: it’s the choice to move forward, no matter what. We need to move forward despite how hard it is, because one day we may not even be aware that we’re already ‘there.’

What UP really is

It’s funny how people compliment me when I share that I got into UP. They would say things like, “Bagay sa’yo, bagay ka diyan sa UP.” I was very vocal about socio-political issues back when I was in high school, and people often see UP as the bastion of student activism and worse, the recruitment hub of communist insurgents. UP never promoted such ideologies inside the [virtual] campus. Being an “isko” or “iska” doesn’t equate to being an activist.

UP lets its students express themselves in any form, but it also lets students suffer in their own ways. It will never teach you how to be an activist, but it will let you decide if you want to be one. UP will make you realize that it’s not the country’s premier university because it’s lacking in a lot of aspects: funding, classrooms, laboratories, functional e-resources, and more. Despite this, UP will teach you that you are limitless and that you can exceed your expectations. This will only happen if you allow yourself to grow and learn from your endless mistakes.

UP will indeed change you. It will change you from the moment you step inside the [online] classroom until you order your sablay [possibly online, too], and get ready for the much-awaited university graduation [or maybe another PowerPoint ceremony, but again hopefully not].

What UP taught me during my freshman year is to not glorify UP at all. UP fluctuates in the world university rankings, and while it may severely bother its administration, its students surprisingly aren’t; not even a tear is shed when this happens. Students do not study for the world rankings alone. They study to analyze and to be conscious critics of everything around them. They study to let themselves grow in a place they never imagined they could.

UP shouldn’t be glorified because of its free tuition, high educational standards, and notable alumni. It shouldn’t be put on a pedestal simply because UP is the bare minimum of how education should be in the Philippines. Accessibility and excellence should be afforded to all students and all educational institutions in the country.

UP can break you, make you, and then break you again; this process is continuous and it’s up to you to finish, cherish, and learn from it.

JM Embate in a Facebook post had this to say to UPCAT takers in 2017: “If you love yourself, never choose UP as your university, because UP will not give you any convenience in your college life at all. But if you love your country and you’re willing to serve the people, struggle if you must to understand them well and fight, because UP is waiting for you.”

The question now is this: Iskolar ng bayan o iskolar para sa bayan? [A scholar of the people or for the people?]. That’s a question we are bound to answer after we finish our freshman year and move on to the next ones. Hopefully, we should know the right answer after we experience what the university has to offer.