I Just Graduated🎓

Greetings to you my dear hivers! How are you all doing? I am delighted to inform you that I HAVE JUST GRADUATED FROM COLLEGE! It was the happiest day of my life as a student.

It all started with "Hey, do you want to take the CTU entrance exam and become a scholar there?" Of course! After learning about it, I decided to take the exam, and luckily, I passed both the exam and the interview and was accepted into CTU for the course I desired. That was four years ago.

Despite the hardships, I was able to complete my studies, and I am grad-waiting. Here we are, at the Waterfront Hotel, for our graduation day rehearsals.

This is the waterfront hotel's largest hall, and our graduation will take place in it. I could picture myself walking to my seat, turning my tassel, and walking up on stage to receive my medal and diploma. I am overjoyed.

This will be packed with students lining up waiting for their turn for the processional. I know, I'm sure everyone on that day would be beaming, so happy to finally graduate.

We went to school to get our toga, hood, cap, and sablay for graduation, and everyone is both excited and nervous. The Latin honors and academic distinction awardees have yet to be announced, and I am one of those hoping to be named to the Latin honors list.

I washed my toga and hood with glee. I was humming while ironing it. Just thinking about graduating makes me so happy. I can't wait to switch my tassel.

Later that day, when the graduating council announced the list of Latin honorees and academic awardees, I became extremely nervous, wondering if I would be included. Because I was struggling with some of my grades, I assumed my name would not be on it, but I was silently hoping and praying. When I saw my name on the list, I got teary-eyed. I couldn't contain the happiness I was feeling.

🎓 MARIA ELLYNE LASOLA 🎓
Bachelor of Science in Hospitality Management
Cebu Technological University
Class of 2022
🏅 CUM LAUDE 🏅

This is the group of friends I made when I first started college. We helped each other and encouraged each other when one of us was feeling down or unmotivated. They helped me get through my studies.

When I first started this journey, I was unsure about my path. We expected it to focus solely on cooking, baking, bartending, becoming a hotelier, and event management, as other senior HRM students said, but things changed. There were changes in the subjects. Because I took a TVL track (technical vocational livelihood) and HE strand (home economics) in senior high school, I need to take a bridging class for the subjects of accounting, business finance, and other marketing and management subjects for my course. Little did we know that we had to take an academic track, the ABM strand (Accounting, Business, and Management) if we wanted to proceed in the BSHM course because it would focus too on business and management.

We BSHM students have heard a lot of criticism from other departments that our course is only for cooking and cleaning. But we didn't listen to them because they only knew a few things about the course, and they just liked to drag others down and criticize them to raise their own. Our block is known as the noisiest because we don't just sit and listen, we also ask a lot of questions. We didn't care what others thought, we just did what we thought would help us. We had many fights, debated hundreds of times, cried, shared struggles, and laughed together. They made my college days enjoyable and memorable by introducing me to unexpected friendships.

I've been so grateful to have my parents. They were the ones who kept me going when I was feeling down, and they were the ones who helped me finance my studies because my course is quite expensive. They were the ones who calmed me down when I was stressed and listened to my rants about my work, instructors, classmates, and activities. Thank you very much, ma and pa. In the future, I hope to continue making you proud. My brother, who is now in Canada, thank you for helping me with my chores when I'm too busy with activities.

Our rehearsal lineup looked like this. We'll be walking from here to our seats inside, savoring that very moment of our lives. To make one last walk down the aisle as a student.
From this..

To this.. Finally!
Everyone is just smiling on our graduation day. My co-students look so happy, and their families look so proud. We look great in our togas and we have matching masks.

We were so excited throughout the ceremony. I loved the turning of the tassels, which signifies that we earned our degree. Then the Latin honors were called, we were granted eligibility for civil service, and we were given medals. Then the acceptance of diplomas.

Three of the eight of us were cum laudes, and I am so grateful to have this group of friends who are always there for me. One of my friends gave us a crochet sunflower that she had made herself in the days leading up to graduation.

It makes no difference to these two whether I am a cum laude or not. What matters is that I graduated from college. My victories are your victories as well. I've always set a goal for myself because I wanted to accomplish something at every stage of my life as a student. Being a cum laude does not guarantee a secure future. That you'll have a job right away, after just one interview with a company. It does not provide any guarantees. You're going to have to work really hard for everything. It's something I can use to say I did well in this stage of my life, that I was able to persevere and even achieve something.

https://files.peakd.com/file/peakd-hive/melria06/23wX7nxpLyV2fBQnQt8Sqb1J8hHypyUVTjQHQzK7dENX4oBLr6hXdATDFN9HrLKYKm4MG.webp

You are forever gracious, our God Almighty, who continues to give me things I don't deserve and for providing me with the strength, wisdom, guidance, and knowledge that enabled me to accomplish all of this. Thank you. Without you, I would not be where I am today.

https://files.peakd.com/file/peakd-hive/melria06/23ydNuXe7MdzwHLL2cpk3HprmTY2MnKC45RcS5gZV88qHGbJyfxhjATBj5MHxh6EyQRRU.webp

A friend of mine created this digital art and asked if I had a photo of myself in my ideal career. Then she sent me this "padayun future chef", which means "keep going, future chef."

I have finally completed my four-year course and am about to enter the real world, a new chapter in my life. It started with "Congrats! You have passed the exam. Welcome to the university! " and ended with "Congrats our Cum Laude!"

What do you think? Comment down below! Thank you for stopping by. See you in my next post.