Sem-end, Part 4: Batchmates

I was reminded by an old friend of how long it's been since graduation. Since we've been classmates and batchmates in both our undergraduate and graduate years, I usually remember first the last time we graduated, 1995. That was when we graduated with our M.S. degrees in Civil Engineering and almost 16 years to the day this April. 1995 was also 2 years later than when we graduated in 1993, obtaining our B.S. in Civil Engineering, with few doing it within the 5 year period that is prescribed for the Civil Engineering program at U.P.

Some who graduated in 1993 eventually left the country, with some even electing to have careers outside of Civil Engineering. One of them was Emmanuel "Noel" Siscar, who dabbled in computers and is now living with his family in the U.S. Another classmate is now based in Saipan and there are other batchmates from the Class of 1993 who are now in the Middle East. One batchmate is now a high ranking officer with the Philippine Army Corps of Engineers, having graduated from the Philippine Military Academy prior to studying at U.P.

Some of us opted to continue on with graduate work and eventually joined the University. That included our topnotcher, Karl Vergel (BSCE 93 cum laude), who left for Japan that same year to pursue his Master's at the Tokyo Institute of Technology. Three of us, Crispin Diaz, Noriel Tiglao and me, remained and got a scholarship to pursue our Master's at U.P. where we were joined by other fresh graduates from other Philippine universities including one Alex Ladaga, who graduated magna cum laude from Mindanao State University, and another Frederick Mangubat, who also graduated magna cum laude but from the University of San Jose-Recoletos in Cebu City.

I have not accounted for many of our batchmates from 1993 though I have reconnected with some of them via Facebook. Some probably prefer to remain in obscurity as we certainly haven't heard about them or their work/accomplishments. There are also few who attend the alumni homecomings organized by the U.P. Alumni Engineers and the same thing with the centennial reunion organized by the Institute of Civil Engineering last year. It's been 18 years since we graduated and we will be Silver Jubilarians in a few years time. As they say, time flies and 7 years may just be a wink of an eye if we're not paying much attention. Perhaps we'll have our batch reunion then and hopefully, there will be many of us to get reacquainted with.