GRADUATE RESPONSE

By Norberto Sarigumba III

University President Br. Raymundo Suplido FSC, University Chancellor Br. Bernard Oca FSC,
distinguished administrators, faculty, parents, guests and to you, my fellow graduates, a
pleasant morning to us all!

Today, I stand before all of you seemingly confident and sure with the speech that I am about to
deliver. But you’re wrong. To be honest, I actually had a hard time beginning this speech.
There’s just something about beginning something that makes it extra difficult than the rest of
the process - may it be starting that first paragraph of your research paper, actually going to that
first day of your gym class or perhaps even making that first move to your crush. And so there I
was, one Sunday evening, browsing through quotes on dreams hoping to catch some
inspiration on what to write. And there was this quote that particularly struck me. It was a quote
by Eleanor Roosevelt and it said, “The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their
dreams.”

This quote reminded me that most of us, as we entered college, probably had these big and
grand dreams with the belief that the future is ours for the taking. “The future begins here,” ika-
nga diba? There were some who dreamed of becoming doctors. Others wanted to be engineers
while there were those who saw themselves as successful businessmen someday. But, there
were also many who entered college without a clear vision of what they actually wanted to be in
the future. And I think I belonged to that latter group. To say that I was confused was an
understatement. I just really can’t decide on what to do with my life. In fact, I even shifted twice
before finally deciding on the course that I wanted to graduate from. And I feel for those who
have experienced the same thing and are still experiencing it. I want you all to know that it is
okay to be confused. It is okay to not know yet what your dreams are in life. Someday, you’ll
figure it out and trust me when I say that sometimes, it is in a way that you would least expect it.

As a Cebuano and as someone who has not even been in an airplane not until he had to fly to
Manila to confirm his enrollment for De La Salle University, you could only imagine how excited
and scared I was of the countless possibilities that awaited me, especially with the fact that I
would be living on my own, which was way harder than I initially thought. Sooner than later, I
began to fall in love with this University. More than just the challenging academic workload and
the fast-paced trimestral system, student life here in DLSU is as colorful and as diverse as it
could get. Having had the impression that La Salle was only a school for the rich and the well-
known, I was honestly scared that I wasn’t going to fit in. But boy, I was proven wrong. Here in
DLSU, you meet different people coming from different backgrounds, may it be that seatmate
you randomly talk to in a class or this brilliant professor whose passion inspired you so much,
and the more you interact with these individuals, the more you realize that there’s just so much
to learn from each and every one of them. And that goes without saying that with over a
hundred student organizations present here in the University, it’s basically like a buffet of
opportunities that’s just there waiting for us to try even just a single one of them. And as
someone who started out in college who completely didn’t know anybody else and who didn’t
have a single ounce of certainty as to what he wants to do with his life, I could confidently say
that now, I know better. I may have not completely figured it out yet, but like what they say, little
progress is still progress.

And speaking of progress, I know that today is a day of celebration for all of us as we finish our
degrees and finally receive our hard-earned diplomas. But, reality check, today also marks the
moment where we progress into the beginning of our much-awaited yet also much-dreaded
phase of our lives - the “adulting” life. With this, let me share with you some pieces of advice
that I’ve gotten in college which I think are still pretty much applicable now that we are about to
jump into the unknown and bring our dreams outside the four walls of our alma mater.

First, know your worth. I know that this little piece of advice is what we usually hear when
someone is going through a heartbreak or relationship problems. But trust me, this is something
that we also have to remember especially when we would already be receiving tons of
rejections from the companies that we would be applying for or when these said companies
would be “ghosting” us for no apparent reason. It is going to be difficult, I assure you, but do not
let these rejections make you believe that you are not good enough. A “No” does not, in any
way, define your worth. Instead of seeing it as boulder blocking our way, we must use it as a
springboard from where we could catapult ourselves into greater heights.

Second, life was never and will never be a race. Growing up, all of us have always been boxed
into this timeline that we have to follow - graduate from college at 20, land a job right away, get
married at 30, and have kids after a year or two. Otherwise, society would tell us that we have
already failed in life. But you know what? That timeline does not necessarily have to be YOUR
timeline. Maybe after our graduation, some of us here already have job offers waiting for them.
Others might have decided to pursue med school or in my case, law school. And there would
also be those who would rather first take a break, travel around. And that is completely fine. We
all grow and become capable of achieving things at our own pace and at the right time. It
doesn’t also mean that you aren’t realizing your dreams immediately that they wouldn’t come
true at all. There would be a lot, and when I say a lot, that could be months or even years of
detours that would come our way before we are finally able to live out our dreams. We just have
to be patient because some things, especially the most important ones, do take time. But surely,
it’s going to be worth the wait.

And the third and last piece of advice that I want all of us to remember would be that we should
never stop dreaming. From when we were kids up until, perhaps, in college, we have always
believed that our dreams are powerful and that they could come true if we just put in the right
amount of effort, persistence and hard work. I know that there would be times where we have to
choose between being idealistic or practical and more often than not, we would be forced to
choose the second option and have our dreams take a backseat first. However, I hope that
despite of that, we never lose the drive and enthusiasm in everything that we do. Yes, there
would be lot of stopovers before we reach our intended destination. But that doesn’t mean we
can’t appreciate these detours and make the best out of them. Remember, we are Lasallians
not just because we have studied and have now graduated from the hallowed halls of this
University, but we are Lasallians because we bring with us that brand of excellence that we
could proudly call our own, a brand of excellence that carries with it the spirit of the mission of
our founder, St. John Baptist de La Salle.

With the many adversities that Filipinos face day by day, the call to stand by the last, the lost
and the least grows stronger now more than ever. As individuals, I know we carry within us our
own hopes and aspirations in life. However we must not also forget to think of our fellow
countrymen, especially the children, whose dreams are put in danger because of poverty and
low-quality education. We also do not forget those whose lives have been disrupted because of
the acts of violence that continue to persist all over our country. As Lasallians, we are
challenged with the responsibility to also dream for these individuals and consequently, in our
own way, contribute for the betterment of our nation. A daunting task, I must say. And just like
how I had difficulty in beginning this speech, I am certain that this, too, would be difficult to take
on for some, if not most, of us. But then again, we are Lasallian achievers for God and country.
And I would like to believe that we are very much capable of becoming ripples of change if we
just put our hearts and souls into it.

Now, it is time for us to put our dreams for ourselves and for our country into action. The long
and winding road called life awaits us and we shall journey into it with our heads held high. Let
us dream on, my fellow graduates! Animo La Salle! Commented [1]: 1. more hooking paragraphs, use
metaphors - plant, pen. 2. shorten mid-part. 3. more
impact and power; brief and concise - conclusion.