Ateneo First Year Orientation (AFYOP) volunteers welcomed and prepared the Senior High School (SHS) graduates last May 28-June 1 for the Ateneo de Davao University (AdDU) campus life and changes in curriculums brought by the new educational system.

Among these changes is the cutting down of years for specific courses such as Interdisciplinary Studies, Psychology, and Engineering.

Interdisciplinary Studies and Psychology courses will now only require three years of education while Engineering courses will take four.

The revisions of the AdDU curriculums are due to the implementation of the K-12 system wherein the courses are pushed down in the SHS.

According to the Office of Student Affairs (OSA) Director Theresa Salaver-Eliab, the subjects taught in college will now have a multidisciplinary approach.

“The students will be taught to not be so homogeneous regarding the perspective of certain ideas. A combination in the liberal arts is a combination of Philosophy, Humanities, etc. There is a challenge on more research,” she shared.

With this, they are expected to not be silent in the classrooms but to learn to generate questions and engage in discourse.

Rimuel Morales, a senior AFYOP volunteer with four years of experience under his belt, explained that compared to the previous AdDU freshmen, teaching the SHS graduates required a different approach.

“They are more practical. They are also more attentive when it comes to discussing tips for surviving college. We have to give more efforts to make them participate in games. They are more interested in the knowledge and experiences of a college student,” he said.

The practicality of the freshmen is presumed to be because their ages now range from 18 to 19 instead of 16 to 17.

Through the challenges that the first years are expected to face, first-year Computer Engineering student Justine Clyde Espinosa shared that SHS and the AFYOP is a good introduction to the next four to five years of college.

“I will stay in Computer Engineering for the next four years. I am ready for college because we were given a two-year preparation on what we want to do during our stay in Ateneo,” he expressed.