[AN OLD RAMBLING AS A FIRST POST]
Imagine an 18-year old engineering graduate—afraid to take the board exam because he feels he forgot his lectures as fast as he took his classes in a 3-year spree. In this blazing period, he even forgot how to play billiards right. Last week he heard a fellow-graduate denied of a cadet engineering program of a company, in favor of 21-year old newly-grad counterpart from other school. The company’s bosses preferred to train someone older, “more mature in life.” (Everyone knows the sinking feeling for that first rejection).
Another friend and former classmate is mad at having lost his one year in the school that accepts students over the quota as easy as it expects to kick-out the likes of him who “cannot cope up.” The school he transferred to refused to accept the credits he managed to pass. His parents depleted the family’s savings allotted for his tuition in one year. Now he must ask work from Jollibee.
Since the Yuchengco group bought the school from the feuding the Mapua-Lim family two years ago, major changes was done on the old Mapua Institute of Technology at Intramuros. One of the first steps was hiring Dean Rey Vea at the UP College of Engineering to become President Vea of the school. We then soon exchanged emails discussing the spanking new airconditioned MIT library, new chairs, new spectrum generators, everything refurbished, they said, and turned “high-tech.” My Mapua-alumni friends felt so proud, albeit being years late to actually enjoy these improvements. Our mapua@egroups.com even received the detail of the first case in the country of a graduating student defending his thesis via streaming video over the Net, done in a Chicago-Mapua connection.
But the most radical change that Mapua will now implement is the shift from a 2-semester- to a 4-semester-a-year academic calendar.
This big move passed the eyes of CHED and DECS supposedly on the central idea that the country needs more engineers. And doing the schooling fast should not hurt, although there is a recurring proposal to add one year in high school or college, supposedly to add to our “quality of education.” In Asia, the basic 14 to 15 years needed to finish a degree here are two years faster than in other countries. And now here comes Mapua to trim out two more years. It promises the freshman to finish his/her engg degree in 3 or 3.5 years instead of the normal 5 years.
Many would like to be engineers explicitly to get better financially someday. (I’ve met many who would have taken fine arts if not for pressure from parents and social stature). And this “graduate-young-get rich-young” promise will surely attract many HS graduates and parents. Many impressionable 15-year old minds will enroll without having a picture of the downsides of the scheme.
Like for one, they are expected to shell-out close to half-a-million in school fees in three years, higher than it would take if the program were for five years. Why? For even then that Mapua will adjust the academic load lower per sem, the same huge miscellaneous fees will be times four instead of two per year. (While doing the math, think why colleges charge the same amount of miscellaneous for the regular 5-month sem and the 2-month summer). Or even worse if the student fails some subjects (of course because he/she has to pay to take them again) or, pray-not, got kicked-out of the school.
Mapua is notorious for having one of the easiest entrance exams, consequently accepting so many freshmen (crowded Mapua stairwells demonstrate the Physics of “strong smell via forced convection” when blocks transfer to rooms for their next class), but then weeding-out close to 50% of these children as easily by their third year. You’ll know that you got kicked-out after seeing a simple “R” in your grade sheet. The innocent paper will not even tell you that you can appeal this “Rejected” case, say, because you have been hospitalized for a month during the sem. (Proof of this being easy with the boot is one school in the university belt being called Mapua Annex for having a large population of Mapua transferees). Finally when the school where the expelled student transferred to (if at all, the student managed to recuperate from the emotional blow of the expulsion) refused to credit the subjects he/she already took, then gone are the tuition money of the past. And now, Mapua wants to do this weeding out faster.
For the survivors, they will become even more focused on getting a degree and a nice job after graduation. And this leads to the support of the prevailing culture in engineering colleges that cultivate the engineer without a conscience. This also means total disregard for the Arts: Humanities subject that teaches to memorize who wrote what and remembering the title of three favorite books of Rizal. “Wala nang art, art, pulitikahan, pulitikahan; mga engineers tayo!” said one Mapuan friend once. For one, they are blameless because they were loaded with tons of [useless] works—inches-thick, hand-lettered laboratory reports which even then are just copied from so-called “Old Testament” reports). A professor that collects and checks the notebook of students to check if they taking notes in class. Even more, the engineer without an obligation to society would be available faster in 3 years.
The last time I asked a cousin, now on his third year at Mapua, he said that many surely don’t want the change. When I asked why are they not speaking, he said “Saan kami magsasalita? Sino?” Apparently, the scheme will be implemented without a hitch partly because Mapuans are not known to air even the slightest protest. The Student Council exists just to organize the Foundation Day fair. The Builder—Mapua’s “student newspaper”--can’t even fulfill a regular monthly outing (the staff have hectic schedules too), and if it indeed comes out it does nothing but to glorify the administration’s new rooms and greet friends of the columnists. To digress a bit though, this of course what to expect of faculty advisers that control the paper and writers who are afraid to lose their scholarship for writing something that might get the ire of the school admin.
Many wonders then if President Vea, a former editor-in-chief of the Philippine Collegian, is still at the helm of this change or is it just the Yunchengcos and stakeholders who wants payback for the price they paid for the school faster.
Regardless if this want for faster payback will have disastrous effects to the students even after graduation. Would graduates really get the job of their dreams young? There is even a big chance that the graduate will use a year out of school just to “rest.” Or if indeed he finds a job immediately, surely he would also want to get payback of his tuition quicker, will get into the bureaucracy, and if given the chance, find the “easy ways,” “under the tables” at once, Getting a jumpstart is not always right. Mapua graduates could just become hinog sa pilit or worse pinitas nang di pa hinog only to become rotten.
The two, three year difference will make for greater learning outside the classroom, not even to expect the student to become involved in advocacy (almost becoming a thing of the past), but extra time to learn to a hobby or two, or hopefully become a volunteer.
Everyone is impressed by Sir Rey Vea’s and the Yuchengcos first moves in Mapua and it seemed at the start that Mapua is in better hands. But this change appears just for faster payback than anything else.
My apologies to friends that might be offended, but sometimes the only way to get attention, and get people involved, is to get their ire first.
[Hayskul gradweyt ng Mapua si Turmukoy. Oo, yung bilding sa gilid ng LRT Doroteo Jose Station. Yung sa gilid ay ang dating sikat na Galaxy Theater. Sa harap ay dating istasyon ng Sapalay Celygusto buses.
Yung dating klasrum namin ay pinapaupahan na yata ngayon. Matatanaw mo sila mula sa LRT minsan na may may mga nakasampay ng mga damit sa labas. Kakaiba.]
Sinadya kaya na dito itayo ang Jollibag para talagang authentic ang feel at ang atmosphere? Para kang nasa Pinas talaga? Biruin mong pati ang mala-Caloocang mini-tambakan na basurahan, ang pagkadilim na parang nanakawan nang bumbilya ang poste, ang mismong sikip ala-eskinita,... mapapatanong ka talaga: Hong Kong pa ba ito? Parang hindi nga swak na magkaroon nang isang kainan dito.
Sana naman ay iniurong nang konti ang espasyo ng Patron B, papunta sa susunod na Patron A, dahil pagkaluwag at pwedeng mag-putbol sa open space duon mula sa harang ng bakod sa amin, hanggang sa unang likod nang tao na nanonood sa Patron A. Mas maigi pa yata ang nanood na lang sa may labas, direkta sa gilid ng entablado (at baka rin mas rinig pa ang musika).
