"This is not college. This is Mapua."
People say college is hard. Well it is hard but when you're studying in mapua, college seems more difficult than it usually is I think. I don't know about other schools, about other colleges and universities but people say that it is harder here than other schools (well except from other top ones like UP).
4th week has finally ended and now I have known the idea of how things go here in mapua. Not that just I know about it but I'm already going through these things. One word: HARD. They've put us in a marathon race with a million kilometers distance of finish line and deadly obstacles along the away. Survival of the fittest is probably the game I should say.
This is mapua. Discussions are five times faster than I was in highschool. The professors will write on the board and as soon as he's finished discussing it, he'll immediately go the next topic. Before the lesson can even sync into my brain, I've got to listen to the next one which is pretty hard specially in my two math subjects since you really have to understand the concepts. We have experienced a situation where in our professor in math10-3 and math 12-1 discussed six topics straight within one and a half hour. We were indeed shock and strained. Only a genius can understand it within the lecture hours. I'm keeping my pace with the profs and I'm still adjusting with this kind of lecture. I was surprised that we already had the same topic of my old classmate who's also taking civil eng in another school even if we just started in second week of july.
This is mapua. Quizes are like final exams. Items are all over one hundred points and it weighs big in our grades. You have to finish it in one and a half hour which was really not enough when I took algebra. So far we had four quizes and sadly I failed the three of them. No I didn't forget to study.I actually prepared for it. The quizes were different like how I look in personal and in my pictures in instagram. Items got a lot more complicated.
This is mapua. Stressful days and sleepless nights were experienced in the first early weeks. Endlessly homeworks and online assignments, quizes, research paper, and drawings welcomed us in the third and fourth week. I know college is difficult but I was shock of what we were going through this first year in our first sem. They are not JUST homework, research paper and drawings. It takes hours or days to finish them specially the drawings and the research paper. Imagine I have to study that week for the quizes and I just don't know which I should do first. I have a two hour travel of home to school and school to home and I'm having an average sleep of three to four hours everyday. That welcomed us.
This is mapua. You're a mamaw they say if you never failed a subject until you reach graduation. Now I'm pretty sure of what they are talking about. It doesn't mean that if you failed or you became an irregular student, you're dumb or you're lazy or what ever. You shouldn't think that way. It's just hard. A fourth year civil engineering student told me that The number of students from their own block when they were in their freshmen days are greatly diminished sem by sem. Originally from 40 to 35 to 27 to 18 and to their present number, 12. He said that some failed and they have transferred and some just gave up. He said math courses can be your number one academic enemy.
This is mapua. The quarter system proposes student to graduate a head of time which is really true... to some. Higher batches are telling us that most of the previous students were extended in a supposed to be a 4 year study. And of course the cause of this delay is what I've said above this current paragraph that you are reading. I admire the higher batch's determination and hardwokr. I, too, soon will be in their place of being so close with dreams.
This is mapua. "If you have dreams, start here" the school's advertisement said. Mapua is hard but it is not that redundant word that I keep on saying in this blog made my college life interesting for me. It is the ride on a ship with a broken computer coordinates wherein you have a course of N 78 degrees15' W with a distance of million kilometers from the port, a bearing of a 17 degrees and a tangent of 3 square of two over 2 that will lead you on a place where you'll find yourself standing and looking on a ground having the painted words "Finish line".
In other schools, they choose only the best people. Here, They make you the best :) This is not college. This is Mapua.
