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The Makings of An Ateneo Scholar
Experience at AASA
By Anne Carly S. Abad
Anne Carly Abad is a 4th year BS Communication Technology student in the Ateneo and works part-time for AASA as a Student Assistant or S’caller. In this article, she describes her experiences and things that she learned being a s’caller for AASA.
I’ve had all sorts of part-time jobs. I worked at my aunt’s bazaar before as a sort of salesperson. I’ve also done some copyediting, and that didn’t work out since it took too much of my time. I even tried out tutoring grade school students, which was a real pain. I started to wonder if I was also like that when I was a kid—stubborn, moody, and rowdy. Sure, it was fun, but it comes to the point when you just want to pull all your hair out because the kids just aren’t interested in studying. I think they simply need time to play. I also had some stints as a painter, doing commissions or selling my paintings…the list of odd jobs goes on.
Now I’m working for AASA, and I’m quite happy that I’m doing something that can help other scholars like me. I contact and research about alumni for solicitations, and I have to admit, sometimes it gets tiring especially when they do not reply to the texts, calls, and emails. You have to be really creative in this job, I realized. If you keep sending them the same thing via the same route, they’ll feel like they’re just getting spammed. So now and then I have to try texting short slogans (this is actually an application of all the marketing classes I took!) that sort of “sell” or advertise what it’s worth to help sending more students to the Ateneo (and of course its worth it). In terms of schedule, sometimes I do have some trouble fitting everything in—work, school, group meetings, service hours, etc., etc. but I guess that in the absence of time, I just have to make time. Sometimes it’s just a question of priority and need, and in this world, the key to survival is simply striking a balance.
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The Makings of An Ateneo Scholar
The Life of a S’caller (In the Eyes of Soleil Garcia)
Soleil Ivory Garcia is a 4th year AB Management Economics student in the Ateneo and works part-time for AASA as a Student Assistant or S’caller. In this article, she describes her experiences and things that she learned being a s’caller for AASA.
Wondering how a work day goes at the AASA office – with many alumni scholars to contact? One person can not possibly do it. How about two? Perhaps…but not very efficiently. That’s why the AASA has s’callers – scholars who call the alumni scholars to ask for their help in giving many deserving youth the Ateneo education.
Right now, there are eleven s’callers who are helping the AASA to achieve its goal. Each s’caller handles a batch (or batches) of alumni scholars. Not only do they call, but also they constantly update the database of each batch.
Hard work? Yes, it is – just imagine how many alumni scholars there are in a batch! With all the school requirements each s’caller has to pass, school orgs to attend to, and families to take care of, maintaining relations with other people they barely know for the benefit of the future scholars can be very tiring. They may also think of quitting and concentrate on the affairs that directly concern them.
However, they do not. They see the cause of what they are doing and envision that other young people may be able to enjoy the Ateneo education they have. All hard work is wiped away by the inquiries on the mechanics of helping the AASA, the “Yes, I am interested in giving” replies, and the pledge forms they receive from alumni scholars.
Furthermore, these s’callers learn the value of time. As the program officer usually says, “There is a time for everything.” Helping the AASA makes them much more responsible of managing their time since all work will be for a good result. They have put into their hearts the reason for helping the AASA through their tasks.
It has been encouraging for them to see their alumni scholars doing well in their lives, and it has been much more uplifting for the s’callers to see these alumni scholars helping the future scholars through the AASA. They can not help thinking that one day, they will also achieve what the alumni scholars have reached and will help other deserving youth to achieve the best from the Ateneo education.
Indeed, seeing the commitment of these s’callers, nothing can stop a vision from becoming true. |
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The Makings of An Ateneo Scholar
The Greatest
By Kassandra Salvacion
The first thing noticeable about Keisha Uy is the fact that her name embodies greatness—and no, it’s not the Keisha but the “Alikad” tailing after it in her birth certificate. Keisha Alikad Uy, or Keisha “Dakila (in reverse)” Uy is your ordinary Atenista scholar who is fond of books (before boys, because she’s never given her heart to anyone else yet) and of politics. Being a Literature major, she takes a deep inkling in words and the meaning behind them especially in stories of everywhere. When she’s in the school, her favorite spot is of course, as anyone could have guessed--the library.
But Keisha’s greatness does not stop there. Her friends find her to be really exceptional as one of her dreams includes being a First Lady (or a Second Lady) because she wants to take in the footsteps of Corazon Aquino. She’s dubbed a hopeless romantic because she chews on the latest gossip on and promotes the welfare of two people, regardless if they are truly romantically involved or only pretending, just because she thinks they have great chemistry. Apparently, her greatness is weird?
Not really, as this pretty young lady is an Atenean scholar—someone who takes her career very seriously. She is bound to take internship in Cosmopolitan magazine this semestral break; she’s very passionate about her thesis which is about the Philippine Ghost Stories. She works hard as she finds love in every little thing that she does, whether that may be working on the Info Desk to put a smile to everyone’s faces, or in just being around her friends.
Keisha’s creative theme in her pictorial truly embodies her well—a stewardess—because she’s someone who dreams of flying high, leaving her mark in every place she comes to, and fulfill her destiny in being The Greatest. Great, isn’t it?
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The Makings of An Ateneo Scholar
Life is Plastic, It’s Fantastic
By Kassandra Salvacion
He’s a Barbie girl, in a Barbie world—something wrong?
Apparently, no, it is not a momentary slip from grammar lessons and subject-verb agreement. There just really exists a He in a Barbie world—not that this certain ‘he’ has ventured on the other side of the world to become a full pledged Barbie but because he has a certain charm to keep his girl friends and cute little admirers drawn into him like bees to a honey. He is a reliable friend; he is overly smart. But most of all, he does every little thing with heart.
If you do not know Henson Lee Yu, then it’d be awesome to get started now. For the basics, he usually hangs around with a few boys and many girls in Schmitt Hall. He is a typical Chinese with fierce eyes. He has a toothy smile and he looks like someone you know you would see teaching, probably in this very university, or with kids like he really dreams to be. Getting a little deeper, he almost, ALMOST, got a QPI of 4.00 in one of the semesters had he worked a little harder to please his lab teacher who gave him a frightening B+. The handwriting must have pushed it, but he is not perfect anyway—which only adds to his so-called charm. However, nothing beats that glorious moment that he had when he still got an A in Father Dacanay’s class even after he was caught in deer head lights when someone put him to the death chamber by texting him in class—and he forgot to switch it on silent mode.
But Henson, how did you really get an A in Father Dacanay’s class?
“Tiyaga lang yan. Hindi ka dapat nagpapadala sa sinasabi ng iba, kasi matatakot ka lang. Alam mong kaya mo sa sarili mo, at maniwala ka rin na kaya mo. If you pray really hard for it, and work hard for it, by God’s will, it will be given to you. If hindi man, something better you never even imagined will come.”
That’s it! For aspiring Father Dacanay survivors, or for aspiring A-material Father Dacanay survivors, remember Henson’s words of wisdom. Don’t limit yourselves to his class though, because the journey in the Ateneo is more than the terror teachers or the hell weeks, it’s about the attitude to get through every problem with grace. A scholar like Henson believes in the same principle—that you just have to work hard and hard and hard but pray harder and ten times more.
This is the reality of life, he says. It’s not plastic, but it’s definitely fun-tastic!
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