Making a World of Difference

This is a pitch for my alma mater. I gave a talk about the Ate­neo sev­eral years ago to high school stu­dents in Cebu City. A part of this arti­cle has been repeat­edly quoted in alumni newslet­ters and ori­en­ta­tion kits. Here’s the arti­cle in full…

Why Go to the Ate­neo for Col­lege?
Eric San­til­lan

I’ll just share with you three things about my expe­ri­ence in Ate­neo de Manila. In an indi­rect way, what I’m really doing is answer­ing the ques­tion: WHY GO TO THE ATENEO?
Here are three rea­sons why I think you should go to the Ateneo…

First, the cam­pus. I’ve been to many other schools (I even lived in UP Dil­i­man for almost a year) and I can say with con­vic­tion that Ate­neo de Manila is one of the best, most well-kept, and clean­est cam­pus in the philip­pines. We have a very beau­ti­ful cam­pus. Walk­ing around the cam­pus at night is a very relax­ing expe­ri­ence. There is just the right amount of trees, and green­ery, to make the walk worth­while, safe, and relaxing.

Many of my class­mates and friends still go to the Ate­neo on Sun­days to jog around the cam­pus, have pic­nics with their fam­i­lies in the field, and hear mass. That is because after work­ing in the con­crete jun­gle of Makati or Orti­gas for the whole week, it is always good to be at home once again with nature. And Ate­neo pro­vides that.

When you enter Ate­neo, you enter A SCHOOL — a place of learn­ing. One look at the build­ings and you tell your­self: I want to study here. One of my most vivid mem­o­ries of Ate­neo was going there dur­ing sum­mer before fresh­man year and see­ing peo­ple sit­ting down on the floor every­where, study­ing, typ­ing things on their lap­tops, eating.

It struck me because we don’t do that where I came from– sit on the floors, in the cor­ri­dors. But Ate­neo is clean enough that you can sit down on the floors, in the corridors.

Part of the atmos­phere and the cul­ture is TAMBAY. Tam­bay means to sit around with your friends, group­mates, class­mates, block­mates, orga­ni­za­tion mates, course mates. So that one of the first things peo­ple will ask you if you do get to study there is: saan ka nag­tatam­bay? That means, where do you spend your free time in school? Where are you accepted? From what group are you?

My point is that it is this sense of tambay—of learn­ing things out­side the 4 walls of the class­room, of not being too con­sumed by school work makes the expe­ri­ence of study­ing in the Ate­neo very enriching.

Sec­ond is tra­di­tion. When you enter Ate­neo, you enter a whole tra­di­tion. The school has a his­tory. A very very rich his­tory. It is the school of Jose Rizal, Gre­go­rio del Pilar, Ninoy Aquino, and Hora­cio de la Costa, as well as Edgar Jop­son and Raul Mangla­pus. Well, it was also the school of Erap until Grade 5 and he was kicked out, but that is another story.

My point is that being part of tradition—of any tradition—is an enrich­ing thing. Being part of Ate­neo is know­ing and feel­ing that you are part of some­thing greater than your­self. That you are not just there for your­self or your fam­ily. That there are some things in life which are actu­ally much much big­ger than you. And it’s always great to real­ize that. That is a hum­bling real­iza­tion. But that real­iza­tion is some­thing that will fuel gen­eros­ity, ser­vice and duty later on in life.

You prob­a­bly know about the hype of the Ateneo-La Salle bas­ket­ball games. We kill our­selves cheer­ing, not because we want to kill La Sal­lites (although some­times we do feel that way spe­cially dur­ing very tight games). I’d like to think we kill our­selves cheer­ing because this is when young and old ate­neans, lolos and fathers, moth­ers and grade 1 chil­dren, col­lege stu­dents, for­mer stu­dents— Parokya ni Edgar, the Macapagal-Arroyo fam­ily and Dick Gor­don come together and become one, and cheer, and shout, and for­get who they are and who they have become.

Once again, they’re just Ate­neans, cheer­ing their hearts out in a bas­ket­ball game. When you are in the mid­dle of all this, it is good to keep quiet and let the feel­ing wash over you.

Third, and most impor­tantly, go there because of the Edu­ca­tion. When I talk of Edu­ca­tion, I’m not just talk­ing high-standards. When I talk of edu­ca­tion, I mean edu­ca­tion that is eye-opening and gut-wrenching. I talk of edu­ca­tion, not just of the head, but of the heart and the guts.

PHILOSOPHY and THEOLOGY classes are prob­a­bly the best rea­son why you should go to the Ate­neo. Phi­los­o­phy is the study of wis­dom, but also, in Ate­neo, the study of what it means to be a human per­son. What it means to LIVE and not just EXIST. Because as my stu­dents know by now, life is not just about how many breaths you take, but by the moments that take your breath away.

In our heads, we think. In our hearts, we feel. In our guts, we know, just sim­ply know, in a way beyond thoughts and feel­ings. The gut has to do with intu­ition, it lets us know what we “have to do”.

It’s like love: diba some­times your friends ask you, “o, why do you love her or him?” And then you say, “kasi… basta eh…” Basta. Beyond thoughts and feel­ings. We sim­ply… know. It sim­ply clicks. Pag may rea­sons ka pa, that’s just puppy love. Pag basta na– love na talaga yun.

And usu­ally those things—the things of the heart and the things of the guts—are the things you remem­ber. They’re the things you bring with you after col­lege. They’re the things you bring to life and the real world.

So three things. Come to the Ate­neo because the cam­pus is beau­ti­ful. Come to the Ate­neo because this is where you feel that there are some things greater than your­self. Come to the Ate­neo because the edu­ca­tion you get there is an edu­ca­tion not just of the head, but also of the heart and the guts.

Come to the Ate­neo. Basta. Basta.

1. Remem­ber the Titans
2. Go Ate­neo!