Nursing 3rd placer is beauty and brains from Silliman in Dumaguete

NO. 3 Marian Vanslembrouck of Silliman University: I wasn’t expecting it. GREG MORALES / CONTRIBUTOR

DUMAGUETE CITY, Philippines—Marian Vanslembrouck, 19, was overwhelmed upon hearing that she placed third in the 2013 Nurse Licensure Examination.

“I wasn’t expecting it but I was hoping and praying that I would make good because I gave it my best,” the Belgian-Filipino beauty told the Inquirer.

Vanslembrouck won runner-up honors in the Miss Silliman pageant in 2010 and served as student government president in school year 2012-2013.

Preparing for the board exam meant answering multiple choice questions.

“I answered lots of questions—previous board exam questions and possible questions. I must have answered 8,000 multiple choice questions in preparation for the board,” she said.

“It was my ‘O.C.ness’ (obsessive compulsive-ness) coming out,” she said.

Vanslembrouck said she looked forward to a possible career in teaching.

“I really like to teach, or I might take up law,” she said. Her interest in law was inspired by her stint as student government president.

The elder of two children of Jan Vanslembrouck, a seafarer, and Maria Teresa Maro, a Dumagueteña, Marian was born in Pasay City where their family first lived.

They moved to Dumaguete when she was 3 years old.

She studied at Negros Oriental Montessori International School and Dumaguete Science High School before becoming a nursing student at Silliman University. Her younger brother, Lars, is an engineering student, also at Silliman.