Learnings

Since the beginning of the pandemic, I am already getting skeptic on how my education would move forward. From face-to-face classes , academic events, and even simply going outside of our homes is prohibited. Everything is shifting to an online setup, and in the beginning I’ve been struggling to get my work done.

To make this period productive I maximized the resources that institutions and universities published through the internet. I enrolled in a course ”A Crash Course in Data Science” in Coursera. This course, definitely expanded my knowledge on how data can be utilized to perform data driven decisions.

Alongside this I also explored different ways on how I can improve my notetaking experience. This is where I studied markup called Markdown. This markup language helped me to easily take notes as it is lightweight, and does not require internet connection unlike making notes in Notion, wherein it requires internet access. My current software of choice for notetaking is Typora and Obsidian. To compliment this, I also tried to explore GitHub as a way for me to make sure that I have a backup of my notes.

Going in to BS Information Technology I knew that I would need to learn a programming language, and upon learning that the language that we are going to take for this year is C I immediately jumped to YouTube to find free courseware. I ended up using the tutorials from freeCodeCamp and I tried to test my skills through HackerRank.

I also tried to expand my knowledge in the realm of Linux and I ended up exploring Fedora and Xubuntu. I tried to use them for a week inside a virtual machine and I hope to install these operating systems soon in my old laptop.

Going off from my academic learnings, I also tried to explore the subject of Psychology by reading books and watching videos from HealthyGamerGG. I am very grateful that I explored this subject matter as I was able to understand myself and others better.

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Experiences

The pandemic had a drastic impact to the way we interact with others and how we do our routines. Meeting people and going out for a walk, everything is limited.

A very memorable experience for me during that time is finishing our research paper. This experience is an eye-opener for me in collaborating with others in an online environment as we would experience some challenges that we need to adapt to. Following this is our completion for Senior High School which was disrupted by the implementation of quarantine protocols.

During the free time I had after graduating SHS, I were also able to give attention to my passion which is making music. I was able to make an orchestral cover of the Lifetime by Ben&Ben. Alongside this I am also trying to learn how to draw digitally and traditionally. I am very grateful for doing this as I was able to use this for several assessments already. I hope to continue this craft and maybe benefit more from it in the future.

As the classes started, I saw a listing for a position in the CSCS Student Government to be part of the multimedia committee and I quickly grabbed the opportunity and was accepted in the organization. Now, I am helping in making content for the student government. I have already contributed to several events such as DistanSAYA, Plugged-In, and more. I really love working in my colleagues and hope to do more projects with them.

My college experience definitely is different, we don’t get to see our classmates and interact with them personally. It really feels weird in a sense that our relationship building is being hindered. This greatly affects our communication especially if we are only chatting. Group works feel so heavy for some reason as well. Nonetheless, I am very happy to get close with some of them and form a friendship. I certainly hope that we would get to experience face-to-face classes in the near future.