Disclaimer: I'M NOT GRADUATING YET

When I was in my senior year in highschool, I didn't want to go to college anywhere else but in UST. Everything was already set up in my head. I was gonna go to college with one of my bestfriends, we were gonna go home together everyday, hang out, etc. I was gonna study Psychology, which got me excited even more. I felt that UST was a big enough pond for a big enough fish like me to swim in. But my parents pushed me to go to UP. I didn't wanna go to UP. It was the Pacific Ocean, and I was a poor little Pandaka Pygmaea. I spent my summer vacation convincing them to let me go to the school that I want and got in to. I sulked and sulked until they finally got to me. They brought up the "financial issues" and I had no choice but to oblige. Parents will do/say whatever they can to manipulate you to also want what they want.

Fast forward:
I was still frustrated that I wasn't in the course that I wanted. I wanted to study Psychology, but since the quota is as high as frickin' Mt. Everest, I decided to apply to my second love, Economics. I'm now in my third year as an Economics major, and so far, I haven't had to drag to myself to go to [some of] my classes. It's funny how everything can change completely in a relatively short span of time. My parents now hate that I'm in UP because, to put it simply, it turned me into a person who thinks about stuff. They hate that I always have an opinion on almost everything. They hate that I answer back to them. "Nung bata kami hindi kami sumasagot sa mga magulang namin!" (Baka naman walang tinatanong.) They can't accept that life does not wait for them. That they can get stuck and the world will just keep spinning and changing. They already promised themselves they weren't gonna let my little sister go to UP. Which might change since people/they are, in general, capricious. Also, I learned to enjoy my [current] stay in UP. I found out a lot about myself, other people, and the things around me. I learned how to stand on my own two feet and not need any other set of feet but my own. I learned how to open my mind and be receptive on the views of others. It is now easier for me to pick the friends that I should keep and those that I should drop. Even though I'm not graduating this semester (which technically I should be), I now realize that I wouldn't have learned all these things if I went to UST or any other school. I wouldn't have met a set of friends that I will keep forever. I wouldn't have experienced riding a jeepney while my pants were ripped in half. I wouldn't have experienced eating nothing but street food because I didn't have food in my boarding house.

It never occurred to me that a little fish can actually grow into a big enough fish to fit in to the Pacific Ocean. I am and will forever be thankful that I got to experience (and still experience) the UP life.