Conversation with the CEAT Class 2023 Valedictorian and REE Board Topnotcher

Timothy Regienald Zepeda. He is a native of Taguig who graduated high school from Lourdes School of Mandaluyong. It is indeed a great honor that the class valedictorian of the college is a graduate from our department. Growing up, he has always been an easy-going person who takes things lightly and goes with the flow at the same time taking his academic responsibilities to heart. His time management skills have gotten him through the difficult times in his academic life. Much of his time is not allotted in trying to study lessons taught in class on his own but more in listening intently in class so he can absorb the lessons well without having to spend more time trying to understand his lessons outside class. He found this an efficient way to learn since he can absorb information easily in class. With this, he can spend more time doing other things he is fond of, especially playing online action games like League of Legends, Dota 2, and Valorant, hidden objects games, and interactive story games, which takes the stress of his academic load off on a regular basis. Though he plays video games everyday as much as he can, he still makes his studies a priority and puts off playing games during ‘hell week’ and while he was doing his thesis. Instead, during these times, he watches YouTube videos of games in between breaks of studying to help him clear his mind and relax from time to time. 

Though he wanted to shift out during his second year as an EE student, he was not permitted to by the department. Rather, he was advised to stay on for at least a year longer to further discover what BSEE had to offer. True enough after a year, he realized he had more options in EE as there are a lot of specializations and subspecialized fields he could choose from, which made him continue on with his EE life.

He also willingly shares his knowledge to his peers whenever they need help in understanding the lessons, tutoring them as necessary. According to him, his success would not have been possible without the support and encouragement of his parents, professors, friends, and orgmates. 

Some pieces of advice he wants to share with other students: face your fear of foundation courses, especially math no matter how difficult or scary they seem, as these are essential in higher EE courses. Find your own studying style since we have different styles that work for us. Don’t hesitate to ask anyone, especially professors, to help you understand your lessons. Find something else to do to detach yourself from academics to keep you sane because this helps to maintain a certain level of consistency; it is difficult to recover from burnout. Finally, get enough sleep, especially during hell week. This helps to retrain the brain to study more.

As for those who are considering to take EE in the department, he says that they can look forward to two things; first, having many opportunities to learn from the diverse fields of Electrical, Electronics, and Computer Engineering; and second, Electrical Engineering opens a lot of doors in the future and students can look forward to working in different fields as EE can be applied to medicine, agriculture, games, social media and many more.

From our end, here’s our message to our class valedictorian: “Tim, we wish you well in all your future endeavors. May you continue to be a source of inspiration to others as you venture into the real world and always stay grounded as you are. Padayon!” | Annie Pintor, September 2023