Computer science was never the plan. It was just the thing that made sense with what I wanted, and with what I happened to be okay at. UST wasn't my first choice either. But somewhere in that quiet uncertainty of waters, I wasn't sure about diving, I decided that if I was going to be here, I wanted it to mean something. And be more than who I was when I entered.
So I made a deal with myself: crave the grind, bet on yourself. Because the pursuit itself becomes the reward, and the process becomes the price.
That deal pulled me into the hackathons, the competitions, the rooms I wasn't sure I belonged in, once the youngest. Usually, the least expected. But I kept showing up, because showing up was the part I could control. Regional stages, national arenas, and eventually carrying the Philippine flag internationally at the ASEAN stage, and expecting nothing more than the chance to show up.
Not that any of it felt certain. I was afraid the whole time. Afraid of not becoming cut enough to the version of me that other people wanted to see or who I might be capable of becoming, I was afraid of settling for enough when I wasn't sure enough was where I would draw the line and call it quits. But wanting more was never about being dissatisfied, or ungrateful, or measuring myself against anyone else. It was just not wanting to look away from whatever I still might grow to become.
Because realistic is sometimes the word we use to make peace with our fear, the ceiling we build around our own potential, so it doesn't hurt to reach it. But a lot of what we want most turns out to be things we actually have some power to build. Delusional enough to think I can. Stubborn enough to keep trying anyway, even if it means putting something substantial aside. Because, as it was told in the world FMA, “To obtain something of equal value must be lost”.
The haystack is gone now. And standing on the other side of it, I can finally see what I was really after — not a title or a career, but the proof that the effort was worth it. That the fire, as frightening as it was, was mine to tend, mine to endure, and finally mine to carry forward.
I love the struggle. I love the game — for whatever it's worth. Aufheben.
——
To everyone who walked even a few steps of this with me, thank you. No step was too small to matter, and none of them went unnoticed.
To my family, for being the ground beneath all of it: for believing in a version of me long before I could see it myself, for allowing me to want more, and for never asking me to want less.
To my friends, for staying close through the seasons when I disappeared into the work, and for reminding me there was a life worth coming back to in between every deadline and every stage. The kind of friendship that waits without keeping score.
To my org members and fellow EBs (TGS, ICS SC, CSS, and AWS-UST), for trusting me with something to build and nurture, yourselves, into it until we had done what was deserved by those we serve. And most especially, AWS UST was never one person's dream; it was ours, and that's exactly why it stood.
To my seniors, who took the time to help us climb and understand the system and program the easiest and most efficient way possible, while making it fun all the way. You turned what could have been daunting into something we actually looked forward to.
To my mentors, for the doors you opened and the potential you saw in me before I'd earned it, and for trusting me to grow into it.
To my professors, for the rigor, the patience, and the lessons that outlasted every prelim or final. The ones that stayed long after the grades were forgotten.
And to that one random person I've met that stood by me in the lowest of lows and of pride, who taught me love, patience, peace, and serenity. The ever thoughtful one, and the loudest voice in the loneliest of battles and the loudest of crowds, somehow always finding me to be by my side.
And thank you Lord, for making me strong and courageous enough to meet this story's last page.
None of this was ever really done alone, and the fire was never mine to tend by myself. We like to believe we become who we are by our own hands, but the truth is quieter than that. We are made in the spaces between people, shaped by every presence that chose to stay. So much of what I've built, survived, and become is woven from the hands, the words, the quiet presences, and the loud cheering of people who gave pieces of themselves to this journey without ever being asked. If I have grown at all, it is because I was held while I did. I carried the name, but you carried me. This is as much yours as it is mine.
And if the needle was ever found, it was only because so many of you helped me believe the haystack was worth searching through in the first place. Maybe that was the real thing I was looking for all along. Not the needle, but the proof that no search worth making is ever made alone. And the search was worth it because people came along to join the ride.
Thank you UST for the 6 years 🐯
Josh Kenn “Kenjo” Asis Viray
2022171***
Bachelor of Science in Computer Science
Specializing in Data Science
Magna Cum Laude