The hype is rocketing and it isn’t stopping anytime soon. It’s in the rushing air, the texture of a fabric, the moment in a picture, and in the bulging folder of papers, probably the last one that you’ll ever compile standing on Ateneo de Davao University grounds. Now, you know the feeling of taking the final exams earlier than all the others, of picking a robe and of going through greater lengths than you ever did when preparing for a photo shoot. Never has a single point been so important, a relationship been so precious, and a photo been so monumental.
Suddenly, every single day is marked as a day consumed to be in another. Looking back, all the bad things that you previously believed humanely impossible to happen to a person (which happened anyway) make sense. Maybe sometime these days, you’ll look at the faces that you see each typical class day and realize that it in a few days, seeing their faces wouldn’t be so typical anymore.
The craziness, jokes, and absurdity; the sleepless weeks, the fulfilment and success in a hard bound thesis, the cafeteria grub, the college torMENTORS – their ridiculous homework and inhumane requirements, their authority, intellect, consideration, awesomeness, and uniqueness. Those eureka and etc. (end of thinking capacity) moments. The comfort of routines. The sheer marvel of learning something new and interesting and the effort it takes to pass a subject course you find sheer torture.
The usual after-classes hangout which doesn’t have to be what one expects— that coffee shop, kiosk, bench, table, armchair, or bed. The security, safety and, on finals week, the temporary panic you feel when you pass through those gates. The imaginary drumroll when you access your grades on SIS. The photocopies, reading materials and books. Your ID. Your uniform. Your university.
You. You’re finally getting out of the training arena and into the fray. So you take in every step of the pathway to glory. Graduation — it’s coming. Come hell or high waters, but you’re marching.
“I’ll miss those days when I and my groupmates made our thesis. It was such a crazy, fun, and fulfilling experience”, shares Michelle Piccio, a graduating student from the School of Education. Her batch mate, Agnes Beduya, shares the same sentiment and more, “The cramming moments, especially within that time when everything seems to be piling up and you don’t know which one you’re going to knock yourself out first. Those times when you doubt yourself and rise with the help of the people who believe you can be so much more than you believe you can be.”
“Of course, there are fears after you graduate,” says Zillah Gallardo, BS-Accountancy graduate. “In our course, we still have to take the board exam, and that results thereafter will somehow dictate your future. But then, one of the things that makes me proud to be a molded Atenean is the imbibed Ignatian values provided for me by ADDU.”
As you graduates, get on your way, here are some of the things that companies say about Ateneo de Davao graduates as witnessed in the recent Job Fair 2013 and as stipulated by the Guidance Office evaluation report:
Graduates exhibit an edge considering their OJT trainings and (AutoCad) subjects.
– Union Galvasteel Corporation
Analytical and naturally outspoken. Ateneo de Davao once again provides very good candidates and applicants.
– Ford Davao- Millenium Cars, Mindanao
Excellent applicants with competitive grades who clearly have been exposed to OJT companies with SAP and other widely used operating systems.
– Ginebra San Miguel, Inc.
Ateneo holds some of the best, well-prepared candidates that possess good communication skills and can carry themselves confidently well.
– Banco de Oro
Confident with good communication skills who act very professionally.
– Californian Clothing GUESS, USA
With knowledge, wit, skills and confidence that only Ateneo de Davao’s best could produce, Atenean graduates has, have and always will continue proving themselves in whatever field they put their minds into. Hats off to you, graduates, who continue to set magis ablaze, being men and women for others. Ad majorem dei gloriam!