A BEAUTIFUL inscription on one of Harvard's gates says, "Enter to grow in wisdom. Depart to serve better thy country and thy kind." As an 18-year-old student entering Harvard College in the early 1990s, I can't say I thought much about these words back then. Like a kid in a candy store (and a Filipino immigrant who couldn't believe her luck), I whizzed through the gates, eager to begin a new adventure, meet new classmates, and indulge in the dizzying array of classes that Harvard had to offer. "Growing in wisdom" was something I thought older people did; I was there to acquire knowledge.
Learning alongside my Filipino classmates made my Harvard experience sweeter. Maya Yotoko Chorengel, Gideon Javier, Patrick Reyno, Owi Ruivivar and BJ Macatulad were friends with whom I could discuss my classes and Filipino identity. From economics to political philosophy, Italian literature to Beethoven symphonies — all of us laughed, talked and drank heartily from Harvard's font of knowledge, most often over a warm meal of adobo and rice at Kennedy School student Jake Lagonera's apartment in Peabody Terrace. "Depart to serve better thy country and thy kind." As we brainstormed the ways we could do our share to strengthen the Filipino people, perhaps something in those words started to make sense and resonate with us.
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