Author: kayegaller

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Exhausting.

I believe that’s the most accurate word to describe the first examinations we had here in DevCom. Our exams did not include any physical activities, yet it felt like it did. The time limit, difficulty and number of questions became our opponents which we needed to attack so we could survive the week. For us to combat these challenges and become the ultimate survivors, preparations and strategies had to be made. Here are some of my suggested preparations and tips in surpassing the challenges brought by DevCom exams.

make your own reviewer

With your notes and powerpoint slides copies, make your own hand-written reviewer. This technique has been working for me since high school and I believe most of the co-students are doing this as well. Don’t rely on the powerpoint slides given by your professors alone. Lessons and lecture notes are easier to remember when you make your own way of retaining it in your mind. Use markers, highlighters, sticky notes, and other learning essentials that will make your reviewer more understandable. You can illustrate the the topics using graphic organizers and other visual tools. Practicing memory techniques such as information visualization, chaining technique and mnemonics are also helpful. I highly suggest making use of mnemonics when you’re trying to memorize enumerated words and phrases.

review with your friends

Having a collaborative and group review actually helps in making yourself learn more about your lessons. This type of activity allows you to gain and share additional information among your friends and classmates. Topics which were not covered in your personal review can be easily learned through this kind of collaborative effort.

get enough rest

Don’t stress and pressure yourself too much. If you think your mind and body needs relaxing before reviewing, go ahead and sleep. Sleeping and resting will make you more productive in reviewing and it allows your mind to focus on what you are trying to learn and remember. Make sure you have enough rest and sleep before taking the exam so you could answer the questions in the right state of mind.

manage your time well during exams

Time management is one of the most challenging part of the exam. Take a quick glimpse of the overview of the full exam and identify its easiest parts. Answer the easiest questions first after proceeding to the hard ones. Don’t allot so much time in answering difficult questions because it could consume the time left for you for the other parts of the exam. Make the most out of your time and don’t feel pressured when your classmates are already submitting their test papers. Exams aren’t racing competitions, so maximize your time and use it for answering efficiently.

pray

I’m not the most religious student in CDC, but I greatly believe in the power of prayers. Seek for the guidance of the Lord and pray for the success of your exams. The Lord will not whisper the answers to you during the examination, but He will surely give you enough strength, power and focus to survive the challenging questions.

The success of your exams and the tips I have mentioned above won’t be possible without dedication, hardwork and effort. Always keep in mind that the kind of future you’ll have will depend on the actions and decisions you make today.

The journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step.

Lao Tzu

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Studying in the premier state university of the Philippines has been one of the things I’ve been looking forward to since then. And now that I’ve been living the dream, variety of challenges did not fail to come into my way. The first of month of being an iska was surely exhausting, but the tiredness I have felt was able to make me realize these first five learnings which I could definitely bring until my final years in UPLB.

avoid cramming and procrastination as much as possible

Procrastination and cramming doesn’t work well in college. Loads of additional readings, homeworks and activities have been adding up to my to-do list everyday. Most of the time, my weekends were just spent doing the things I could’ve done without procrastinating. This made me realize that I had to manage my time well and make the most out of it. The use of my phone planner made it so much easy for me to track the deadlines of activities and schedules of events.

keep negative thoughts away

UP did not fail to make me feel like I’m the stupidest person on earth. I always find myself questioning my skills and abilities whenever I encounter people who are a lot better than me. Being intimidated is unavoidable. It has consumed me fully which affected my performances in class. But then I realized that these thoughts will not do anything good to me. I tried my very best to see the brighter side of every situation and remind myself of the reasons why I’m here in UPLB.

value your first friends

Adjusting with a new environment and set of people have never been easy to me. I always find myself having a hard time socializing with the people who are far from my social circle. But then I was one of those lucky people who found home from their superclassmates. My superclassmtes were so understanding and fun to be with. They did not fail to make me feel that I’m not alone everytime things fall down. Months from now, we’ll probably separate ways and vary in our schedules. This thought saddens me but it was able to make me realize that I have to value my remaining time with the people who became my first home here in Elbi.

taking a break is fine

Academic requirements are very much exhausting that I tend to forget about my well-being and health already. I have given most of my time for acads which affected my eating, resting, and sleeping time. It made my mornings less productive but fortunately, I was able to see the importance of taking a break. Giving myself enough time to rest have given me enough energy to handle the workloads given by our professors

know your priorities

Managing and balancing my academic and social activities have always been a hard task for me when I was in high school. I tend to give more importance to trips and celebrations than my homeworks and projects. But college life have slapped me so hard and made me realize the importance of putting my studies on the top of my priorities. Knowing what’s important and what’s not made it easy for me to manage my time and productivity.

College is fun as long as you don’t die.

Tsugumi Ohba

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Pen & Paper

The use of pen & paper will make it easier for you to take note of the information you will gather.

phone

This handy device is useful for taking photos, videos and recording audio when you’re conducting an interview. Be sure to always bring it with you anywhere you go.

laptop

You’ll be able to save a lot of time organizing and creating your documents and outputs because it provides easier access to your files.

powerbank

A portable source of power will be a great help in case your devices, especially your phone, run out of battery charge.

water

Data gathering will surely exhaust you so don’t forget to bring your water and stay hydrated!

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On the cloudy morning of August 19, 2019, we, the Pawer Puff Gurlz, has started our journey as a team. Maria Thresha Ursulino, Kate Maybelle Abulad, and I have decided to go on a trip without even knowing where we’re headed to. Our group was tasked to gather information from Barangay Baybayin for the community directory. Not a single one of us knew the exact location of the barangay hall of Barangay Baybayin so we tried to ask some people regarding the whereabouts of that place. Fortunately, we were able to arrive at the proper destination with the help of the security guards and the driver of the jeepney we rode.

I did not expect that it would be so much easy for us to gather data from the barangay where we’re assigned to. The people and officials from Brgy. Baybayin’s hall were very welcoming and they happily accomodated us into their office. The interview we have conducted with Mr. Romeo V. Oro, one of the councilors of Barangay Baybayin, went smoothly and we we’re able to get all the information we need.

From this experience, I have enumerated three things you need to keep in mind when gathering data.

PLAN AHEAD OF TIME

Things never go out of control when you plan. Always make sure that you have already planned when and where to go before the day of your scheduled interview. Prepare the essentials you have to bring such as your pen, paper, phone, water, and other relevant tools for gathering data. List down the questions you will be asking in the interview. And never forget to make back-up plans in case something goes out of hand.

“Proper preparation prevents poor performance.”

Stephen Keague

HAVE A PLEASING PERSONALITY

It is easier to connect to other people if you can simply establish a good interaction with them. Remember to always smile and be polite when you ask questions from people you do not know. Always express gratitude to those people who were able to accommodate and entertain your inquiries. It’s a good thing to practice proper interpersonal skills as early as now so you won’t have a hard time connecting to people in your future exercises and activities.

MAKE SURE YOU HAVE GATHERED THE DATA YOU NEED

Don’t leave unless you already have all the information you need. You wouldn’t want to go back and waste time for the questions you could’ve asked before.

These reminders are just three of the many things you have to keep in mind when gathering data. Your task of getting information from your sources will go successfully if you don’t fail to remember these.

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Writing has never been my forte ever since my primary years. I did not know the qualities of being a good writer because I never planned to have those in the first place. Fortunately, my experiences from my high school requirements allowed me to improve the communication and writing skills I never thought I had. And now that I am currently on my way to becoming an effective media writer, I have to be mindful of the qualities and skills I have to acquire and improve for my future writings.

The quality I believe I have to improve the most as a media writer is being interested in people. I know myself as a not-so-sociable person outside my circle of people. I grew up only caring about the people whom I feel very connected with. But that doesn’t mean that I don’t sympathize with the people who are far from my social circle. Though I already have past experiences on interviewing people who are not acquainted with me, I still think that I’ll have a hard time doing it in the following activities.

Being knowledgeable of the accuracy of the articles that I read is a skill I have developed to a high extent. With a lot of free news articles online, I believe have already learned the difference between the fake and authentic ones. I always make sure that when I read news or other informative texts online, they come from reliable sources and verified data.

Among the skills listed, I seriously have to work more on writing clearly and effectively. I really am having a hard time making my writings communicable to the audience. When I do my writings, the ideas do not come in a systematic way and random sentences flock together which makes my points unclear.

My weaknesses allow me to see the qualities and skills that I lack and I believe that those I currently have as a media writer are still improvable and yet to be stretched to their full potential.

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In a world full of endless possibilities, a girl finds herself trapped and lost. Kaye Galler is a human-driven by passion yet, she still doesn’t know where she wants to be headed. She is afraid of the fact that what she likes to do today may not be likable enough for her tomorrow. With a mind full of indecisiveness and uncertainty, there’s only one thing she’s sure of–she does things that she enjoys today for she believes that a life fueled by contentment is a life fulfilled.

Her goal of being a UP student has ignited the perseverance within her since her innocent days. And now that she has been living with it, she’s doing her very best to make the most out of it. Entering BS Development Communication was her sole choice and she’s hoping that the life she has planned to achieve was inside it.

Kaye is a firm believer of art. She has emerged herself into liking the world of editing, painting, drawing and even creating music. Writing isn’t her forte. She isn’t the type of student who competes in interschool contests and activities. The only reason for her to do writing is academic requirements. She’s not the best in making a content-worthy essay but every time she does her work, she makes sure that her work won’t be the worst one submitted. There is always room for improvement and possibilities. And Kaye is hoping to open all of those rooms to upgrade the kind of writing she has.

Her enthusiasm for media has been her inspiration in conquering the BSDC program. Landing on a job of being a doctor, engineer, scientist or a certain profession in the future wasn’t in her plans. She just wanted her job to revolve around media because she knows she’ll do great and be a productive individual when she’s in that field. She didn’t want to be the most popular in her field of work; she just wanted to be known and recognized.

This girl knows nothing about good decision-making. But she is aware that the choices she makes every day will make a great change to the life she’ll have in the future.

A girl has no dream profession. But a girl has plans. And she plans to know the kind of art she is and the imagery of the life she wants for herself. Life did not tell her the dream she wants for her profession in the future. But it did teach her the reality that it takes a lot of steps to get into the wisdom of knowing your dream. And she hopes that being in DevCom is the first step she’ll take towards that knowledge.

By Kate Maybelle N. Abulad, Kaye O. Galler, and Maria Thresha N. Ursulino

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The candidates of the Mister & Miss Los Baños 2019 have showcased their bests in the Festival of Talents last September 18, 2019 in the General Paciano Rizal Park in line with the celebration of the Bañamos Festival 2019.

The Festival of Talents is an event which exhibits the variety of talents of the representatives in the annual Mister and Miss Los Baños pageant. Twenty-five percent of the total score of the candidates will come from their performance in this event. Among the judges were Mr. JC Austria, Mr. John Robin Ortega, Dr. Arnel Palines, Mr. Basil Malicsi, and Ms. Polly Cabrera.

Out of the 24 initial number of contestants, only 20 of them were able to represent the different barangays of Los Baños . Nine of these contestants are male and eleven are female. These candidates were able to show diversity of talents from dancing and singing to performing spoken word poetry and magic tricks.

Councilor Josephine Evangelista has formally welcomed the program by giving an opening speech for everyone who watched and participated in the said event. She has also expressed her gratitude towards the people and organizations who sponsored the pageant.

The announcement of winners of the Festival of talents took place in the Mister and Miss Los Baños Grand Coronation Night last September 21, 2019.

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Looking for a development-oriented topic is no joke. Not all issues or events circulating in our everyday lives have the qualities of being development-oriented. From the testimonies I have read from Twitter and heard from my DevCom professors, I believe that the complexities of finding a development-oriented topic will stay with me during my years in DevCom.

The past lectures and discussions we had from our DevCom courses already gave me an initial idea on the characteristics of a development-oriented topic. However, the ideas I had still lack some information I need to fully grasp the whole thought of the word development-oriented.

To have a greater understanding on this, Ms. Rica Mae Valencia, an alumna of CDC Batch 2016, have enumerated the top 3 characteristics of a development-oriented topic.

1. a Development-oriented topic is people-oriented.

It focuses on issues that a certain group of people, specifically the marginalized, experience or affect their daily lives.

2. a Development-oriented topic is participatory in nature.

Before a development-oriented project or initiatives are implemented, a need’s assessment is normally conducted, wherein the subject (people) are consulted first.

3. a Development-oriented topic uses the audiences’ language.

It usually uses Layman’s language, so that, even those who were not able to finish formal schooling can understand the topic’s content or objective of the outputs.

The qualities of a development-oriented topic are not only limited to the ideas listed above. However, these perceptions of Ms. Rica Mae Valencia can be greatly used as a stepping stone to discover more ideas about the issues circulating in the kind of world we’re living in. It is on us, the future development communicators, to unveil the deeper meaning of what a development-oriented topic is.