Written by Niña Anilin Fernandez

Time passes by so fast that you’ll never realize you’re already holding your high school diploma, your key to the next big step in your life.

A race to the finish: the perfect description of the pressure in getting into a good university, getting a college degree, and taking on a job.

Needless to say, you don’t always get what you want. Your high school dreams crumble as you realize you needed to sacrifice a little for the choices you wanted to prioritize—dream school or degree? Free tuition? Close to home? Your parents’ wishes?

Of course, you don’t always get what you want.

And when you do, euphoria follows shortly after.

It starts when you realize getting that admission letter is not the starting point of college life.

Getting into a prestigious school is no easy feat, but here you are. Out of the hundreds of thousands of applicants, you stood at the entrance of an assembly full of people who are smarter than you. 

This is when you begin to realize: no matter what you did and what you’ve accomplished during high school, you are merely a speck of dust in this new environment—oblivious and clueless. 

You enter this campus, knowing legends have surpassed you already, and everything you’ll achieve during the next four years is insignificant. 

You feel small. 

You will never know if studying will ever amount to anything, or if competing for the top ranks would even matter. Your bragging rights for school definitely won’t save you from the stress and pressure from the backlogs that will grow larger and larger by the minute. You don’t even know if you’ll make it to graduation. You can never tell whether your efforts will be fruitful, nor will it guarantee your success afterwards.

Is there even a point to achieve greatness when it looks like you’ll never make a mark in the first place?

You’ve been worried about all these, when all this time, accepting how small and insignificant you are is the next big step.

It was a pessimist take, but you have to realize that everyone else is small like you. Those new faces you’ve met in Bahay ng Alumni were just as lost as you are. All were scared, nervous, pressured into growing into someone admirable. You’re all starting fresh, you’re all insignificant. 

But just because you’re insignificant now doesn’t mean you’ll stay that way forever. The privilege of starting at the bottom is that you’ll have enough room to grow. 

You realize you have enough room to make errors and correct them. An opportunity to make friends. The time to create bonds and connections that will last a lifetime. 

Gone were the days when studying felt like a simple game. It has now turned into a path with the finish line never clear. 

You allow yourself to breathe again.