When we hear the word struggle, two things may come into mind: hardship or a fight for justice. My college journey was defined by both. Almost six years in college, even though it took longer than expected, here I am standing tall with pride, screaming at the top of my lungs that I finally made it.
Entering college, I never really knew what to expect, but given the pandemic and online setup, the first few years were undeniably rough. I tried to hype myself up with so much enthusiasm and ambition, and tried to overachieve so many things as had become my second nature ever since high school. But then the inevitable came: family problems, financial strain, heartbreaks, until my academic performance began to deteriorate as well. It was in this convergence of pressures that I reached my lowest point. I have always been accustomed to believing that my failures will define me, so throughout college, I carried that weight and beat myself up so much that it became very hard to recover.
I have always carried this weight of internal conflict. I often felt an overwhelming sense of guilt for becoming a burden to my family, especially my mother and my older sisters, who sacrificed so much just to help me finish college. At the same time, I was grappling with my own mental struggles, as I sought to affirm my worth and prove, if only to myself, that the pressure I was under was far from easy to endure. But given the situation, how could I, right? People have always carelessly said that life is not a race, but in reality, it often feels like one, especially when you are not born into privilege, or at least for me. I found myself slipping into hopelessness, gradually becoming more pessimistic about many aspects of life.
Learning to see beyond the walls
Entering Ateneo allowed me to encounter a diverse range of people within and beyond various communities, and adapting to the culture in Naga eventually reshaped my perspective on many things as well. I found myself thriving in the student publication, engaging in multiple student organizations, and actively participating in various activities. As I opened myself to these experiences and interacted with different people, I began to learn from them, and eventually realized that perhaps things were not as bleak as I once thought.
I gradually became more aligned with activism and mass movements. While I continue to recognize my academic responsibilities, I found myself increasingly drawn to journalistic work, participating in mass integration through mobilization and organizing, and, most importantly, grounding everything I do since then in service to the people. These experiences exposed me more deeply to people’s struggles and broader social realities.
Struggle through the lens of social reality
It was then that I realized I should not be overly harsh on myself when, in truth, the system itself is fundamentally flawed, and that it is this structure that must be questioned for the persistence of poverty and the educational crisis. I had been so consumed by my own difficulties that I had become largely individualistic in my thinking. And that is when struggle redefined me. It shaped who I am today and transformed the way I understand education, as well as how I now interpret the values Ateneo seeks to instill in its students.
As the first editorial article I ever read from ThePILLARS Publication entitled “Ateneo atop the hill” stated, “Magis is rendered pointless when students are entrapped and socially dulled in the four corners of a classroom.” That was when I decided to go outside. This very line inspired and challenged me to widen the meaning of education and see it as something we do for and with others, and not just for myself. That is why I take so much pride in saying that my pursuit of a degree has never been just about personal achievement. Every step I have taken in the institution and outside it has been anchored in genuine service to the masses. For me, being well-educated is not measured by grades or how well you perform in the classroom, but by the capacity to understand the structures of society, to take decisive action, and to stand in solidarity with the struggles of the people. It is beyond the classroom where the spirit of Magis is truly forged—in the fight for justice, in immersing with marginalized communities, and in serving the people beyond oneself.
What resilience actually costs
So no, I resist framing my college journey as one defined by failure, because failure is ultimately subjective. But this does not mean I am shrugging off the reality of struggle, nor romanticizing it, but acknowledging that it has been an integral part of my journey. I am often reminded of a line from my favorite animated series, Steven Universe, when Greg said, “If every porkchop were perfect, we wouldn’t have hotdogs,” meaning, “If you just wiped away everything you see as flawed, you lose all the things that make you happy, like hotdogs.”
People now see me as someone who is resilient, but in all honesty, I owe much of that resilience to the masses. Acknowledging their struggles is not an act of pity or romanticizing their resiliency; rather, witnessing their strength gave me the courage to confront my own battles. If I had learned something from Karl Marx’s dialectical materialism, it is that our lives are shaped more by real-world conditions and social systems than by just our personal decisions. What I once thought was my own failure slowly made more sense as something influenced by bigger social and economic forces; things that affect who has more chances to succeed and who ends up struggling within the system.
But even if we acknowledge our own failures, they should never be something to be ashamed of because they are a prerequisite; they are what make us better and stronger. More importantly, the choice to continue despite struggles is a different act of resistance. Activism, and my immersion among the masses, made me realize that, at the end of the day, we are all just humans trying our best to survive this screwed-up system of ours. It is within this understanding that I came to see my diploma not merely as an academic credential, but as a testament to struggle and as a continuing imperative to serve the people—and that I may be delayed, but I am reassured that finishing my education was not in vain.
