Sofia Sanchez

Starting Line

Assessing one’s own capabilities and qualities is not easy because it requires honesty in admitting not just one’s strengths but also the weaknesses. However, in this exercise, I was forced to do a quick self-reflection as a media writer and determine the areas that still need improvement.

Among the qualities listed, which quality would be the one that you need to work on the most? Why?

“Interested in and loves people” is a quality I have to work on the most because I tend to feel too self-conscious and uncomfortable around people I don’t know well. Although I do feel very interested in getting to know various kinds of people, I still find my people skills to be a little lacking.

Given your ratings, what keeps you from getting that 1.00 self-rating?

I’m aware that most of these qualities still need more effort on my part in order to truly develop them. I think the reason why I still have problem with developing these qualities is because I got used to putting mediocre effort in the things I do. Another reason is that I simply have much to learn as a media writer and that the experiences I had as a campus journalist in high school barely cover everything I still have to develop under this course.

Among the skills listed, which skill have you developed the highest competency? What contributed to the development of that skill?

Organizing information is a skill that I think I have developed the highest competency as compared to the other skills listed above. I owe the development of this skill to the experiences and learning I acquired during my years as a science and technology writer, and as a campus journalist in general. Often, we were given loads of information on a certain topic which was why we had to develop the skill of sifting the most important parts only, before organizing them until all of the information are organized by relevance and connected with each other.

Among the skills listed, which skill would be the one that you need to work on the most to develop? Why?

Proficiency in the operation of communication tools/devices is a skill I would like to work on the most in order to develop it because I admit that my experience as a media writer is limited to writing only and that I barely had any exposure to other tools/devices that were not necessary in writing.

Pens and Scalpels

Her original plan involved one thing only—to not stay.

Before she landed in BS Development Communication, Sofia Louise Sanchez used to daydream of studying either Public Health or Nursing in another constituent university. Hours after hours of watching Grey’s Anatomy had finally pushed the eighteen-year-old Batangueña to become a cardiothoracic surgeon, and since then, all she would dream of was to serve the people by quite literally, fixing them when they get sick. Well that and to hold a human heart one day. In her mind, there were only two possible ways her college life would unfold: either be accepted in UP Manila or take her pre-med course in her back-up university.

So imagine her surprise when April Fool’s Day came and brought with it a third possibility: be accepted in UP Los Baños under the program BS Development Communication. But with her mind set stubbornly on the thought of shifting, she entered college completely unaware that the course she was to take would bring her back to her first love—writing. Before she dreamt of holding a scalpel, her chosen tools were a pen and a paper. For nearly her whole life, she wrote what she couldn’t properly say out loud: from poems to stories, and essays to articles. Most of her high school years were either spent inside her school’s publication office or in faraway towns where School Press Conferences were held. Being accepted into the DevCom program and discovering what it was all about felt a lot like the universe nudging her back to a well-loved path, and one that she no longer wants to leave.

Although med school is still definitely her endgame, her original plan is now mostly scrapped. In its place lies a new one, comprised of two things only: serve the people as a development communicator, and then as a surgeon.

Survival Kit: DevCom Edition

Development-Oriented Topic: A Break Down

One of the many challenges a development communicator-in-training faces daily is perfecting the art of finding a development-oriented topic. Often, this proves to be a daunting task because of how broad “development” is, making it hard to determine the boundaries of what can be considered as a development-oriented topic, and what cannot be.

Fortunately, there are plenty of people to guide us wide-eyed development communicators-in-training as we navigate through the world of DevCom. Among these people is Rich Adriel De Guzman, a Batch ’18 DevCom student who I was lucky enough to get a few words of wisdom from.

According to him, the three (3) characteristics that make up a development-oriented topic are:

It has to be layman in nature.

In DevCom, majority of the audience we cater to do not have access to formal education, which is why it is important to keep this in mind when writing. Like our professors always say, the real challenge in DevCom is being able to write a complicated topic in a way that anyone, regardless of their intellect or educational background, can understand.

2.It has to be biased to the masses.

This can be related to the first characteristic, for in DevCom, the priority will always be the marginalized sector because they are the ones development is created for.

3. It has to be research-based or factual.

Of course, it is also important that when writing a development-oriented topic, it must be based on facts only, which means that it can be verified through different credible sources.

As mentioned before, the word “development” has a broad reach, which also means that a development-oriented topic cannot be easily confined within three characteristics only. Although there are plenty more criterion, these three characteristics can still serve as helpful reminders to those who find themselves a little lost in the pursuit of a development-oriented topic.