The College Clearance Experience"

As the first semester comes to an end and the second semester approaches, I realized there are many things to do and requirements to comply with before enrolling. I initially thought that we only needed to get our grades and proceed to enrollment, but college has proven to be more complex.

Back in high school, we only had to clear our clearance at the end of each quarter or the school year. However, in college, the process is different it’s done by semester. It’s also quite challenging because one of the clearance requirements includes picking up at least one small plastic bag of trash from the campus surroundings.

Additionally, each section must ensure their classroom has a trash bin, attendance in all school events is mandatory, and event fees (e.g., for intramurals) must be settled.

Before we could comply with all these requirements, we encountered several problems, which were worrisome since some requirements were by section. If one task wasn’t completed, all of us could get into trouble.

One issue we faced was the trash bin. It turned out that our bin had already been taken by someone, and if it hadn’t been listed as a requirement, we wouldn’t have even noticed. We ended up contributing money to buy a new one.

Next, there was the matter of chair numbers. My chair was fine, but some of my classmates had issues because their chairs were misplaced or swapped. We helped them check other sections, and fortunately, we were able to locate them.

Another challenge was picking up trash. When we arrived on campus, we noticed it was already clean, so finding trash was a struggle. Since we weren’t allowed to collect trash from outside the campus, it took us a long time to fill our plastic bags. We roamed the entire campuseven reaching the furthest areas just to look for trash!

After filling our plastic bags and getting them signed by the SSG and other required signatories, we proceeded to our classroom for the final requirement: attendance at all school events. This was to be verified by the Dean.

When my name was called, I felt a mix of emotions. I was nervous because some of my classmates had attendance issues and had to explain their absences to the Dean. I was also happy because, finally, we were getting cleared and ready for enrollment. At the same time, I was hungry because we had been there since early morning and didn’t finish until noon.

Fortunately, our Dean wasn’t too strict. She gave some of my classmates minor punishments, like cleaning, for missing events. This process taught me to feel more responsible and disciplined as a student and as a person.

In college, I’ve learned that attendance is a must! 😁🥰