8 Tips for Students Looking to Apply Abroad (From an applicant who just went through the process)

Looking back at the past year and what I went through during the application process, I can say that CAMP Philippines and my CAMP mentor really helped me in myriad of ways that I will forever be thankful for.

A few days ago, I got a chance to visit my CAMP mentor Chris Dee who is currently a junior at Yale. At one point, we ended up exchanging notes on the application process, synthesizing my experience (what worked well for me), talking about what CAMP has done for all the mentees and underclassmen and just going over the rising college-abroad scene in the Philippines and our role as “Illustrados.”

(CAMP has a super duper helpful guide for people interested in studying abroad (all the essentials are here): http://www.campphilippines.org/uploads/1/2/3/6/12362897/_camp_college_app_guide.pdf

With my CAMP mentor in the Yale, New Haven campus

I still remember going through the process like it was yesterday. The college application process was an experience in itself, filled with countless of highs and lows. And in between all those were valuable lessons I learned that I wish to share with you guys as you go through the process yourselves!

Top 8 Tips for Students Looking to Apply Abroad

1. Enjoy the Process; Treat it like a Game –As you start thinking about applying abroad, it’s inevitable that you will become busier than ever. To add to your academics and countless of meetings already, you will have to study for the SATs, write your essays and find ways to stand-out and boost your application.

Since you will go through it anyway, might as well stay positive and enjoy the process. The best way to do this is really treating the college application process like a (video) game with you trying to improve his score (SAT score?) and finding ways to make it to the next level! And besides, believe it or not, some of your best memories will come from the fact that you’re applying abroad!

An extremely helpful SAT guide: https://talk.collegeconfidential.com/sat-preparation/955109-silverturtle-s-guide-to-sat-and-admissions-success.html

Looking Back, Moving Forward – My First Day of Senior Year!

I honestly didn’t know what to expect and how the first day of senior year would go but man, it couldn’t have been better. It was just so surreal to see all my friends, classmates and teachers once again all in one place. Aside from that, today was just filled with such vibrant energy that it was contagious and I just couldn’t help but be zealous throughout the entire day.

The first day of classes started out quite well as we all gathered for the usual orientation, except that this orientation wasn’t so usual. It’s our last orientation as a batch and a lot of us were just nostalgic and at the same time excited to start the last year of ours in high school.

The student council reemphasized school pride and making the most out of our last year. Aside from that, they also encouraged each and everyone of us to break new grounds and make a difference in our last year.

Loving every second of Senior Year so far!

This was followed by our student activity programs head’s talk which was about this year’s Xavier China Experience, or XCE. I was really blown away by his presentation and I just can’t wait for XCE! The activities seem so awe-inspiring and it will also be my first time to join XCE.

Aside from XCE, our class adviser also oriented us about the different events for 4th year. Aside from college entrance exams, we’ll also be having our recollection in Xavier Nuvali, our SM immersion and our Entrep Bazaar. These are all things I’m really looking forward to and will without a doubt, make senior year memorable!

Moving on, what made this day also so fantastic and surreal was the fact that I, along with a few other seniors, were given the opportunity to talk to the younger batches about Xavier pride and making the most out of high school.

Through this, I was able to look back at my stay in high school and at the same time, share my insights, regrets and realizations with these young guns who will eventually, one day also be seniors trying to make the most out of what’s left of their stay in Xavier.

I’m really glad that I was able to share my experiences and pay-it forward. I really don’t want them to commit the same mistakes that I’ve committed and regret it later on. Everyone is talented and these younger Xaverians have so much potential. Hopefully, the other seniors and I were able to inspire these young men to step out of their comfort zone, try out new things, find their passion, strive for excellence, make the most out of high school and simply, make a difference.

After giving talks to the younger batches, I had lunch with a few close friends of mine from freshman year. It was really nice catching up with them and talking about how fast time flies. When we first entered high school our problems were just about fitting in and getting good grades but now, life is just so much bigger. Most of us are looking forward to college and our future career yet a lot of us also aren’t entirely sure what we want to be and what the future holds.

Everything will definitely work out for the better for all of us. Right now, we may have so much uncertainties but that’s what makes life exciting! Right now, we may be confused but eventually, we will find who we truly are and what really matters to us. A quote from that our guidance counselor showed us perfectly embodies this and what our mindset should be in facing the future.

“The big picture doesn’t just come from distance; it also comes from time.” – Simon Sinek

The first day of Senior Year has been nothing short of amazing. Every second, every minute and every moment just seemed so surreal. Day one is over but there are definitely a lot more memorable days to come! This is only just the start! I honestly can’t wait for tomorrow, the second day of Senior Year!

My Senior Year Schedule! Excited to meet my teachers! 😀

-DOitChoco

My Filipino Movie Making Experience – Something I’d Like To Call FUN!

My Filipino Movie Making Experience and The Many Things I Learned From This

As we reach the midway point of this week, it is very satisfying to be finished with all the assessments and only have the Quarterly Tests to worry about. It was especially fulfilling to close the book to two of the more memorable assessments that I had in this year, my English Research Paper and our Filipino Movie.

Although Filipino isn’t considered part of the Big 3 Subjects (English, Math and Science), it has always been one of my favorite subjects and my forte ever since high school started. This year was no different and my Filipino Class experience this year was the most memorable one so far. From the start of the year when we tackled Noli Me Tangere, a must read classical, to the very last assessment, our Filipino Movie.

Poster of our movie, “Anong Gagawin Mo”

Making this Filipino Movie was such a surreal experience and was truly one of the most memorable experiences I’ve had in Junior Year. In the process of creating this movie, I learned so many different things and at the same time, I also got to know some of my classmates better. I am really thankful that the Filipino Department decided to give this project to us instead of having the mundane and routinely Quarterly Test that happens every year. They probably understood the fact that making a Filipino Movie would teach us so much more and would be a whole different learning experience compared to a test where we sit down for one hour and answer lackluster questions. If we had our Quarterly Tests, we would have probably taken the test then forget about everything we reviewed and what we just took, but with this Filipino Movie, we will most probably forever remember the experience of making this movie and everything we learned from it.

When I first heard about this project of ours from our Filipino Teacher, I was really excited and filled with exuberance especially since just recently I’ve become an avid fan of movies, and at the same time, I’ve always loved projects, especially major projects, where we need to apply several different skills and really put time and effort into it.

In creating a movie, one must first start with the formulation of a story and the writing of the script and sequence treatment. To be honest with you, this seems like an easy task, but it was actually very difficult and challenging to write an original story that would also fit all the guidelines that were given to us for this project. At the start, I really had no idea what my story was going to be, but as I dug deeper and looked around me, I came up with the basis of my story. I chose to base my story on a recent and unconventional experience of my friend.

Once I had the basis of my story, I had to add something that would make the story deeper and even more unique. As the days passed, different twists and ideas quickly came pouring into my head that I was able to put together my story and script. Looking back though, I think that I overdid it and my story turned out to be too complicated for a short film which ended up biting us in the back later on not only in creating the movie but also in the Film Festival, where we weren’t able to achieve our goal of first place, but then again, nobody’s perfect and life is about making mistakes and learning from them

The creation and filming of the movie was a whole different experience, where I was truly able to bond with classmates who I never really talked to throughout the school year. This is what I love about group works, where the you chose your group mates randomly. You’re forced to work with them and most of the time, you end up with at least one group mate who you never really talked to, but since you’re group mates, you are able to get to know each other better.

I’ll be frank with you, filming the movie was no cakewalk. We literally had to pour our blood, sweat, and tears during the four or five days we filmed. We offered two of our saturdays, one of our school holidays and several other breaks and hours in filming and editing this movie and trying to make it the best possible movie not for the grade but for what a Junior Year it has been and how we want to end the year with a bang. Because of this, we were sort of perfectionists and had to re-take different scenes several times, but seeing what we were able to accomplish in such a short period of time was truly awe-inspiring.

The only dismal and melancholic part was that we actually had to cut our film short because it was way above the time limit and our teacher told us that we would be disqualified if we didn’t. This was really painful because of the fact that we really worked hard in filming the parts and I really place a lot of thought in writing the story and making the script. To add insult to injury, during awarding ceremonies we didn’t place in the best movie category probably because the flow of our movie was not so smooth because first of all, we had to shorten it and cut some parts, and second, because of the already rigid time limit, we had no choice but make our ending an open ended one. Nonetheless, I’ve come to realize that it doesn’t matter if the judges didn’t choose our work, because deep down, I honestly know that if we were given a chance to show our full movie, it would have been the best, hands down.

Best Actor Award – I didn’t win it, my GROUP did!

As a consolation, I was awarded best actor but it didn’t really feel so fulfilling, I actually felt quite dejected and apathetic especially after I found out our movie didn’t place in the top 3. I would have honestly preferred that our movie placed than me receiving an individual award. Nonetheless, I’m still grateful for this award and I’d really like to offer my award to all my group mates who made this Filipino Project a crazy, fun-filled, surreal and memorable experience like no other.

Group picture during one of many tiring but at the same time fun-filled filming days.

No matter what the results were, this movie making project will always be part of my favorite memories in my stay in Xavier. It ranks right up there with all the other memorable projects and experiences I’ve had. All the saturdays spent filming, all the sabaw moments, all the laugh trips in filming, all the lunches together with my group mates, all the retakes and bloopers, all the days staying after dismissal to work on this movie made this project something more than the grade, something bigger than school, something I’d like to call FUN!

To sum up everything I’ve learned from this experience and to sort of sum up this last academic week of Junior year, I’d like to quote a statement that I said during my English Oral Defense speech, “School is not just about the grades and the numbers; it’s a whole lot more than that! School is about learning. Learning not just facts, terms, names, equations, formulas, but learning VALUES and SKILLS that you can use in the future.” Projects like these really do give us students a chance to bring out our creativity and talents in ways that we could never fulfill inside a classroom.

To add to that statement, school is most importantly about the people we are able to meet and the FRIENDS we are able to make. This is something that I truly realized in making this project, the importance of working with others, getting to know people and building FRIENDSHIPS that lasts forever. I truly couldn’t have asked for a better way (assessment) to end my Filipino Junior Year experience.

-DOitChoco

PS. In writing this post, I’ve pondered upon what I would answer to our movie teaser, “Kapag lahat na lang ay nawawala sa iyo…..Anong Gagawin Mo?” or in English, “When you’re losing everything already……what will you do?” As I end this blog post, I think I’ve finally found the answer to that question, but then again, maybe I haven’t, but that’s why I live LIFE…….the DOitChoco way! 🙂

Why Math is more than the numbers…..

I haven’t posted in my blog so far because I’ve been bombarded with several assessments and projects as this school year comes to a close. Just yesterday, we also had a field trip to an island called Corregidor, which was a full day thing that sucked all my energy. Aside from that, I recently finally PROMposed to a friend of mine, which really made the past week a really hectic and crazy one.

I’ve really missed writing for my blog during the past week and I will start posting again in the upcoming days for I’ve got a few memories that I’d like to forever remember by writing a post on them, particularly, my PROMposal and my field trip to Corregidor, but since those two will be a bit content heavy, for the mean time, I’d like to share with you guys a part of my WIKI Math assessment that I just finished.

WIKI Math is like a review of our previous practice tests and is an outlet for us to correct our mistakes and at the same time review the different lessons of the past quarter. This is something that was only started this year and is one of the more creative assessments in Math. We are tasked to explain and show our solutions to three difficult items from our past practice tests. We then end it with reflection, where we rate our performance during the quarter and put our realizations. Since it is the fourth and final quarter already of my Junior Year, I decided to make my reflection in the last part a really deep one, and one portion of my reflection that I’d really like to share with the rest of the world is:

“One thing that I really learned this quarter was that Math is more than just the numbers. There was one time when we were working on a really challenging seat work on a new lesson, I remember my classmate who was having a hard time and was quite frustrated already, asking my math teacher, “Cher, how do we use this lesson in our life?” It was really astonishing that my classmate asked this especially since our lesson was on circles, segments and the like, so I too was curious as to how my math teacher would respond.

To my surprise, my math teacher wasn’t shocked and probably expecting the question or has been asked the question previously, she calmly answered, “Sometimes, it’s not always about applying the lesson directly to our daily lives but what we want the students to gain from this, are analytic and critical-thinking skills. It’s about how you respond to certain challenges and how you deal with these types of problems. Are you the type of person, who easily gives up? or are you the type of person, who’ll find every possible way until you are able to find a solution?”

When my classmate heard this, he was obviously silenced and a bit embarrassed for what my teacher just said was the truth for not just math but for school in general. When we grow up and face the real world, we obviously won’t remember all the academic lessons we learned during grade school, high school or college, but what we will remember and what will stay with us for the rest of our lives are the values that we were able to build and gain when we tried to understand the lesson and in answering those perplexing problems.

As Junior Year comes to a close, I can say that the one thing I truly learned from this class is that, “Math it’s not always about the numbers or the grades, but more about the (real life) values we are able to learn from answering all these problems.”

-DOitChoco