Every Thomasian goes through the same initiation of going through the Arch of the Centuries only to exit the same Arch upon graduation. Yet whereas there is only one path of entry and exit through the Arch of the Centuries, both literally (one path) and metaphorically (fulfil academic requirements), there isn’t one clear path paved for all Thomasian alumni when we enter the “real world”.
At the same time, we aren’t born Thomasians. All students had their different cultures and motives for entering UST. Perhaps this attempt to blur out the dichotomy between “real world” versus academia sounds melodramatic, so how can one possibly say that communion in the Church as the Body of Christ and in society is even possible and something we can expect from all students, not just as an abstract ideal, but one that truly molds our character?
If knowledge is a light (as the metaphor is often used), the purpose of learning is not merely to find ourselves and utilize our education to take us places, as though education were a spot light, which only pointed back to ourselves, while ‘muting’ out the background. Education is meant to be a searchlight, a much broader, far-reaching light. The reason why the latter is much harder to accomplish is because this form of learning enables us to experience the sublime. The searchlight will render ourselves smaller in proportion to the grand scheme of things, yet perhaps it is only by embracing this feeling of “smallness” that we may truly appreciate the world, and only then come to a better understanding of ourselves. The sublime gives us a feeling of smallness, but rather than making us feel irrelevant, it can make us feel grand, because out of all the grand things in God’s creation, here we are--catalysts of communion in the Body of Christ, with the common goal to glorify God. This I believe is central to one of the core values of being a Thomasian: compassion. Perhaps it is by the same analogy that we can agree with the saying “All knowledge points to God”.
It is from this that Etienne Gilson derives what he believes are the “ethics of higher studies”, such as intellectual humility and integrity. In the same way, it is from compassion that the two other core values flow out: commitment and competence. The way I see it, competence is the goal (‘what’), commitment is the “how”, and compassion is the “why”; and as Simon Sinek would say, we must “always start with the ‘Why’” to be successful.
One of the biggest decisions I made recently was to change my goal from merely adding to my portfolio and blog each week to reading indiscriminately and using art as a response (if not answer) to the questions people navigate. Every major requirement has made it clearer to me that the more I know, the more I don’t. And it is by exercising the core values that I make myself fit as a catalyst for communion in the Church and society.