I can describe my first semester in fifth year as a challenging and difficult part for me. The lessons in school are becoming more intense, to the point where I can hardly understand. I know this is just a part of my journey as a graduating student.
During our first two weeks of class I was unable to attend it, because that time we are still completing our 240-hour internship in Rider Levett Bucknall Inc. at Pasig City. I admit it was hard reaching missed classes and covering up quizzes and tests. We really need to make it possible to have almost perfect score during exams but even passing it is hard to make.
This semester we had a subject on Civil Engineering Project which was all about research. We had our pre-oral defense last December. I, together with my co-scholar Alex Pagatpatan are group mates. Our group research title was “Tapioca Flour as Concrete and Wood Putty Material”. Tapioca is defined in our research as “a starch extracted from the cassava root through a process of washing and pulping”. Knowing that construction cost is arising nowadays, we suggest to develop a putty material that can be applied in both concrete and wood in more economic way without compromising the quality and also giving more opportunity to the farmers. Since cassava is abundant in our community there is no problem making it as our raw material in our re-search.
Aside from being a challenging semester this was also one of the busiest. We had three projects on our major subjects, namely Timber, Steel and Geotechnical Engineering II. Each subject we need to design a two-story building that can withstand the loads applied to it and the dimensions of the member that we will identify to be used on the structure.
It is up to us to decide if it is industrial, commercial or residential, as for me I prefer the latter. On working on our projects we need to have a lot of patience. The computation process involves trial and error, and sometimes you’ll get upset whenever the size you assumed compare to the required resulted fail. In the end you need to recompute and start from the beginning. But after recomputing and finally arriving at the desired result is a feeling of fulfillment.
The day before our enrollment we are visited by the owner of Gillesania Engineering Review and Training Center in Cebu. I was really inspired by his achievements and dedication on his career. In our school mostly the engineers are a product of his review center. This motivates me that no matter how hard it may be, I will be a licensed civil engineer. I may stumble and fall, still I will rise because I have God and the people who believed in me, that includes you my PCAFPD family.
By Jovy Ann Cabaguing, a scholar studying civil engineering at Eastern Samar State University, Guian, Samar.
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