Buhay Kolehiyo: Coming to Terms

    College life is a very complicated phase to anyone who only has a few years of schooling tog o before hitting the world big time. One thing that a college boy must always remember that there is a vocabulary of college-related terms that one must at all times remember. They may be universal college terminologies or those exclusive to your own college/university.

1. Course names- Today, Pinoys have an easier way to say college terms without any nose-bleeding. Usually these courses have codenames so it is easy for the students to remember. Popular codenames are POLSCI(political science), MASSCOM (mass communications), MED (medicine), IT (information technolgy), and many more. Courses exclusive to their respective schools have popular names from itys initials)  like in CSB, MMA (multimedia arts), CDA (consular and diplomatic affairs), CA (computer application), MP (muisc production), TA (theater arts), etc.

2. "Prof"-Prof is a uniquely pinoy term since in other countries, "prof" is considered vulgar since professors are greeted with undue respect. But in here, wheteher you respect your professors or not, "prof" is a better application to them (since it was their generation who started it all anyway). SO the choice is yorus if you wanna call him/her, "prof", "professor", or "propesor".

3. "C-Break, U-Break-This are Lasalista terms with the former used by students of DLSU's sister college, CSB. They're short for College Break and University Break respectively. It's usually a time for students to go out and make malling, eating out, or anywhere near the campus as long na di ka lalayas afterwards. Nakakabulol ang pagsabi ng college at univeristy nang paulit-ulit so it is better if we call it in shorter terms.

4. "Org"-short for organization, orgs are in a way like high school clubs except it really caters to the inetrest of the students. In Benilde (and I guess in La Salle), orgs are part of the Student Involvement Unit which are realy composed of students. Orgs were created to bring out the hidden potentials of us collegians and at such, organize events kaya nga sa TV, daming mga inaadvertise na events na sponsored ng mga college orgs. One plus side sa orgs is that they have team-building activities with venues from as far as NASUGBU and ANTIPOLO and get to now the orgmates during their overnioght stay. Oh yeah, orgs each have a wicked set of names like DEBSOC, KINO EYE, JMA, etc.

5. "EMO"- short for "emotional", I'm much surprised that this previously exlcusive YM term have already crept into the vocabularies of everyday people. Probable cause? Maybe due to the fact that this was used by YM users on a practical basis outside the LCD screens of their computers and there you have it. Instead of telling someone that he or she is getting emtional, the teller would say "Hey, you're getting too emo", or in the verncaular, "feeling emo ka 'no?" and "Magpapaka-EMO ka pa?!". A related term to "EMO" is "EMO mode" wherein one is getting emo at the moment, meaning he's entering into a mode of emtions thus called "EMO mode".

6. Nosebleed-Actually I only heard about it as an expression last May the 23rd, during our frosh orientation. When we say that 'our noses are going to bleed' it means that we're gonna have a hard time thinking what to say, up to the point that our heads would rise up as if we're having a nosebleeding moment. This expression applies to those who find it difficult to speak in practical English on their foreign classmates or during lectures where one was to speak in English. In DebSoc, I would apply this term ti myself as I have difficulty on my debatin skills considering I'm a neophyte to the field.

7. Frosh-short for "freshman", I cam to know the word when I was given a brochure about our frosh orientation. The plural form of frosh, they say is "froshies' but I find it no suitable to saynit as such since 'frosh' as a singular sound so formal so I'd rather go with the plural form of "froshes" which sound a lot better! Freshmen is a comon term in pre-college days, particularly in high school but no so here in CSB and in La Salle. I wonder so in other colleges and universities.

8. Upperclassman/men/woman/women/persons/people-People belonging to the higher batch and ultimately the graduating batch. I've already come to know about the term during my high school days but it is not used to refer to it in the elementary and secondary levels. In grade school, there are "lower grades and high grades", as high school have "lower and upper years". In the tertiary levels, "lowerclass" seemed to be out of use, maybe because it sounded very negative. Froshes can cal the higher batches as upperclass people but the upperclass people themselves cannot call those below them as lowerclass although 'froshes" "sophomores", "juniors" and "seniors" are good alternatives.

Visit this p[ost for any word update!