Project F.I.T.A (From Industry… To Academe)

Janet C. Cabrera

“In life nothing comes randomly, everything happens with a purpose.”

I can still remember the old days when I was six years old telling my parents that I would like to become a teacher when I grow up. The moments that instead of playing habulan and bahay-bahayan, I prefer to play aral-aralan and I will be acting as the teacher holding a long stick and pointing at an improvised board with random writings on it. And from then I said to myself, gone were the days… and so I thought.

Those childhood dreams were just keep behind the closet overtime. For as we grow, we tend to experience a lot of things that would later change our course/track along the way. Long gone were my childhood dream as I embark and indulge in another worthwhile career in the world of business and management – the industry as they commonly term it.

Years of being an employee in various industries, I thought that this is where I will be. But the universe may have a different plan, for it always find ways to show me the way to “teaching”.

Opportunities came easy, as if the doors were intentionally left open inviting me to enter, and so I did. I started teaching at STI College Angeles, just because I need to for a reason. Admittedly, I enjoyed it and I thought it was just because of the wonderful people I was with. Soon enough, I left the academe the moment I have meet my goal – to finish my Master degree. I returned to the industry and worked in an office, and so I believed that it is where I belong… and again, so I thought.

Happiness is there, however the feeling that something is lacking and needs to be fulfilled still lingers, which during those times I do not know why or what. Suddenly, an opportunity to teach part-time appeared, I grabbed it and started to teach once more and felt the thrilling sensation of fulfillment. From then I realized, I have enjoyed my days in the academe not just because of the wonderful people I came to encounter but more so the fulfillment of teaching in general. It is like a craving deeply rooted in my heart that needs to be satisfied. A long lost childhood dream forgotten in a closed closet yet continuously tries to break through.

And so I started my journey… I enrolled into my methods of teaching, submitted my application at the Department of Education Division of Angeles City, and in the grace of the Lord, passed the Licensure Examination for Teachers (LET) in year 2018.

The profession of being a teacher/educator is not easy and it will never be. But for us who have chosen this path, we do not consider it as a career but our life-long vocation. Our contribution to our community and to the world. For all the journey I have been through, from my childhood dream to everything in between up to this point of becoming a teacher fulfilling that dream, I am forever grateful. For there are no wrong paths to cross, just a redirection that would eventually lead us to where we belong.

To the industry I have been a part of, I am forever thankful for leading me the place, academe, where I truly belong.

The author is Teacher

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III at Angeles City Senior High School