The best I could do just before high school graduation ceremonies was consider possibilities. My brother was going to support me through college but there was no assurance, and no idea where. I had wanted to become a criminologist, a veterinarian, or a journalist, things I once thought about in high school. None of these materialized, though. My brother said, “I can’t afford to send you to school in Manila.” I ended up in agriculture, in Los Baños. In those times, there was no UPCAT, but UP was getting only the top five percent of graduates from various high schools. Valedictorians and salutatorians were taken in as “Entrance Scholars.” The honorable mentions had to pay full tuition, which wasn’t much, really.
I was high school valedictorian, but of a very small graduating class from a very poor and small province -- Batanes. When I got to UPCA, I was in the league of real valedictorians from very large high schools from other parts of the country, including known high schools in Manila. Needless to say, I was almost always at the tail end of practically all school undertakings when my batch was involved.
When my brother got me enrolled at UPCA in June 1963, I didn’t have the slightest idea where I was heading. Since one of my options was veterinary medicine, he told me that “the College of Veterinary Medicine will transfer to Los Baños next year, so you can transfer then.” Well, the CVM, indeed, transferred to LB from Diliman, some 16 years later.
Another option I had when I graduated from high school was journalism, but the closest I could go at LB was a new major area under the BSA program, which was just introduced when I got to UPCA. This major area was then called agricultural communications. I had very little idea what this was but it sounded fun, so I majored in agricultural communications. This introduced me to the areas of journalism, audiovisual communication, and rural educational radio broadcasting. What was then called agricultural communications is called today development communication.
When I got to LB in 1963, the place was not so different in ruralness from where I come. What perhaps made LB completely different from other rural towns in the country then was the presence of UPCA and its corps of brilliant scientists. Indeed, in those days, it was public knowledge that Los Baños hosted the greatest number of scientists per unit area. We did have the great opportunity of studying under the tutorship of those great Filipino minds.
Instruction at UPCA was Spartan at the very least. In high school I thought I understood trigonometry, but at UPCA I hardly could make something out of the lectures on the same subject. College algebra wasn’t any better for me. Physics? I did understand some aspects of it. I did have difficulties with agricultural chemistry, agricultural engineering, and genetics, and I was ordinary student in plant pathology, entomology, zoology, animal husbandry, agronomy, horticulture, agricultural meteorology, soil science, and the like. I liked my courses in sociology, psychology, English 10, agricultural education, agricultural economics, agricultural extension, and agricultural communications.
All in all, I learned to like popularizing applied science like agriculture for those lacking interest in science. I do wonder, now and then, what I would have become had I pursued my interest in criminology.
***
No comments:
Post a Comment