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“BEING, BUDDING, BECOMING”

(Viel P. Jose – College of Medicine)

Four years have passed since I first set foot in this institution.

Four years have passed since I was still an outsider of this great academe.

And four years have passed since I was still ignorant about the world I am living right now and the life that I’d be living with in the forthcoming future.

With my being, like a blood-red rose in the orchard, I bud into what I am now, in order to become of what I wanted to be. A doctor, a humane doctor with ambitions geared towards the welfare of the sick and the needy…

Our distinguished guests; members of the board of judges; faculty, staff and administrators of this university; fellow Southwestern-ers and fellow medicine students; friends, a pleasant day…

“BEING, BUDDING, BECOMING” –such an appropriately celebrated theme for this years most awaited moment of sheer camaraderie – the SIGLAKAS 2008. A festive moment wherein all the different colleges of South Western University will come as one in the spirit of celebration, unity and sportsmanship.

I was just about four or five years old when I started having an ambition of becoming a medical doctor. I was very young then to realize what I would like to become when I grow up. But I’ve never anticipated that as my childhood ambition, I am now actually taking the path to fulfilling my dreams. Though I still have much to take and more trials to face, I am nonetheless happy that I’ve gone this far, and getting closer to my fulfillment.

Just like most of the students here who have hailed from the provinces, I have also once feared that I might not belong or not be able to get along with the other students; or that I might not make it nor survive my course. I was aloof and kind of timid. But then, I’ve realized I was wrong. My fears have vanished. Because Southwestern University is such a pleasant place to learn; to be molded, to be educated and to be transformed to what we ought to be.

Southwestern University has constantly upgraded their facilities, amenities and their teaching modules in order to be always at par with the other leading universities in the country and abroad. New infrastructures have been put up for a better learning experience.

For one, the Southwestern University college of Medicine has been constantly developing better tools for a better education in order to produce more competent doctors. It is worth mentioning that we are the first and only medical school in the entire Philippines that has a senior clerkship rotation abroad. And proudly, we are the first scholastic batch to avail of such new learning and training experience. We are now currently rotating in one of the most sought after medical institution in Bangkok, Thailand, both by local Thais and foreign clients alike, the Yanhee General Hospital. And in the future, our college has promised to extend further its affiliations with other highly acclaimed training hospitals abroad for a more advance and superb training for our future doctors. We have pioneered in this endeavor, and we have already marked a lead in this race.

There are still a lot to mention about the university’s strategies in producing far better graduates that we ourselves can be much proud off. Strategies that will surely educate and mold us all to be the best that we can be in whatever fields we are in. Be it as a nurse, as an engineer, as a dentist, as a lawyer or as a doctor perhaps. For certain, we are all being molded now to become the best that we can be, and to excel in every endeavor that we will take. For it is not just through academics that Southwestern University is molding us. We are also being molded to become better persons; physically, mentally, spiritually, socially and emotionally stable individuals.

For whatever its worth, it has been my sheer pleasure to have Southwestern University as part of the making of my being. For it is here where I bud, and from then I will become.

In time, I will be leaving the portals of this great institution. Bringing with me the memories of my days here, as well as the learnings and teachings that I’ve acquired as a medical student of this university.

And down to my last breath, I will be forever grateful that I have found my being bud as I yearn to become a competent Obstetrics-Gynecology Oncologist in the future.

I awe all this to my future Alma Mater, “Matias H. Aznar Memorial College of Medicine, Southwestern University.”