I first started entered post-secondary in 2013, at Xavier University- Ateneo de Cagayan with the program BS in Nursing. Now, this program was not my choice, it was parents’ choice. The only choice that I get to pick was the school that I go to. Since I already went to XU High School, it made sense to me to stay in the same university. Honestly, it was hell for me. I tried to make the most out of it despite on how unhappy I felt all throughout. There were many times that I’ve thought to myself, when I’m 40, will I be happy with this job? But I had no choice, it was either this or no school at all. I did the bare minimum. I barely passed my classes. I know I could do better but I also didn’t want to give my parents the satisfaction of me getting good grades. I think this was the start of my life-long battle with anxiety. I hated Nursing, I didn’t want to take care of other people. It takes a special person to be a good Nurse and I wasn’t going to be a good one. I was just glad that I got the chance to migrate to Canada after my second year and didn’t have to finish the whole program.
I went to Grande Prairie Regional College for my first two years of supposed BS in Biology degree. However, I think I forced myself to early to actually graduate so I can catch up on my high school batchmates who have already graduated. This was a big mistake on my part and something that I paid dearly on my grades. You see, I took out student loans to pay for my education since my parents couldn’t be bothered anymore to pay for it. But I was young and stupid and failed a lot of my classes. It did not help that my anxiety got worse and my therapist suggests that I was showing signs of deep depression (really never went to the Psychiatrist to be officially diagnosed). For those 2 years, I did really badly to the point that I only passed half of my courses for the last semester. I wasn’t able to transfer to the university that I wanted as a normal student so I applied as an open studies student (got in still though).
MacEwan was the university that I kinda wanted to get in. Of course, my first option was University of Alberta but I was turned off by the large class sizes that they have and MacEwan had smaller class sizes. I enjoyed the time I spent there but had to drop midway my second semester due to some family emergency. In hindsight, I think I just forced myself to go there to because I was in a hurry to graduate. I took the next school year off to think about what I really wanted to do. Looked into different schools and different programs and settled with NAIT. My first option was their Biomedical Engineering Technology and the second was the Laboratory Research and Biotechnology program.
I got into the Laboratory Research and Biotechnology program at NAIT and I couldn’t be any happier. I was just happy that I get to do something that I have been hoping to do since I was in high school. The idea of me working in a laboratory has never left my mind and I’m glad that this is something that I can finally do in the near future. Every time we had labs, I felt happy to just be there and learn the different techniques. The one thing that surprised me the most that I actually got invested in was laboratory animal surgery. Now, I don’t condone the unnecessary use of animals in testing. But sometimes, especially for medicine and health research, the use of an animal model is needed unless we can find a way to get a more accurate model. I am now hoping to get a job in a research facility that deals with laboratory animals so I can help take care o them. I think I know that I can be a good researcher and animal handler. Of course I’m not happy when it comes to killing these animals, but if I can make it less painful and traumatic for them, that would be okay-er.
Anyway, your girl just graduated!
Oh Amerl 