A piece of advice to average graduates

Every year, the top 10 passers of the bar or board exams are featured in the newspapers sometimes with their faces on the front page.

Also every year, the top 10 graduates of the Philippine Military Academy (PMA) are also played up on the front page of newspapers, complete with their photos.

Most of these topnotchers end up becoming prominent lawyers, doctors or highly-paid certified public accountants, nurses or what-have-you.

Some bar topnotchers become justices of the Supreme Court, the dream of every lawyer.

In the case of PMAyers, those who graduate with honors have a big chance of becoming a general and even chief of staff of the Armed Forces.

Being a topnotcher and graduating from an ivy league school, like the University of the Philippines or the Ateneo, helps boost the chances of one becoming very successful in his or her chosen career.

But here’s my 10-cents worth of advice to those who barely passed the bar or board exams or did not come from a prominent college or university: It’s your determination to succeed that matters, not the grades you got in school.

The world outside is very much different from life on the campus; only the graduates who have the guts to face challenges and the desire to learn along the way will make it to the top of the heap.

First, in order to succeed, you have to love what you’re doing, first and foremost.

Even if you are of average intelligence, you will become successful if you love your work.

Second, you have to learn to adjust to changes in circumstances or fortune, especially those unwelcome or unpleasant.

In short, you have to have a high EQ or emotional quotient, as opposed to intelligence quotient or IQ.

* * *

Miriam Defensor-Santiago and Juan Ponce Enrile were not bar topnotchers but they became very successful lawyers and public servants.

Santiago became a judge, commissioner of immigration and senator.

Enrile became a customs commissioner, secretary of justice, secretary of finance, minister of national defense, senate president, and now senator.

Rodolfo Biazon was the “goat” (one who graduates at the bottom of his class) of PMA Class 1961, but he would be considered the most successful among his classmates: He became AFP chief, senator and is now congressman of Muntinlupa.

Defensor-Santiago, Enrile and Biazon all have one thing in common: They’re oozing with guts, their EQ reaches the ceiling.

* * *

A Harvard study divided the students in a class in business management into three groups and monitored how members of each group did years after graduation.

The first one-third of the class, the brightest students, became professors and academicians.

The second or middle group became chief executive officers (CEOs), chief operating officers (COOs) of the companies they worked for.

You know what happened to the last one-third, the ones who didn’t graduate with honors? Most of them formed their own company and became president or chairman of the board.

Why did the members of the last group succeed more than the first and second, who got higher grades in school?

Probably because they had more guts than their “more intelligent” Harvard classmates; they were risk-takers and they overcame the challenges.

* * *

Congress should look into the quality of the multi-purpose attack craft (MPACs) that the Navy has bought over the years.

Of the six MPACs acquired in the last several years, most are already out of service or under repair.