Success does not always come on a silver platter. Our alumni from the College of Computer Studies started as a Non-Academic Scholar (often referred to as Working Student) of the University for three years. Despite being enrolled in what is known to be a “difficult program”, he managed to juggle his work and studies, and was even able to serve his fellow working students by being the President of the Society of Non-Academic Scholars for two years.
His experience of being enrolled in the program and working part-time made him develop the right character required to succeed. Mr. Klent Abistado, our first featured Alumnus has learned, though in a hard way, values like Passion for Excellence, Responsibility, and Tenacity. He now works at AWS (Advanced World Solutions, Inc.) where he occupied the following positions: Junior Research and Development Engineer, Assistant R&D, Associate R&D then Senior R&D. All of these he underwent in less than 5 years, as he graduated October 2013.
It is also important to note that support coming from the academic community matters a lot to students. In the case of Mr. Klent Abistado, no less than the Dean of the College of Computer Studies, Prof. Cherry Lyn Sta. Romana, had given him the push he needed to reach his full potential.
Below is a short note from him. We hope that his story will inspire all of us to always aim for the TOP.
“My experience in CIT University as a Computer Science student and a working student, at the same time, really helped me propel faster in my career. The technical knowledge I gained in CIT sparked my interest in the field while my experience as a working student strengthened my character.
When I was a student, Prof. Cherry Lyn Sta. Romana had been a very good professor – and I believe she will always be. Back then, all I needed was motivation and she did a great job in pushing me to achieve my best.
In my current company, I am the person who got promoted the fastest. I became a Senior Engineer in just 3 years and became a Supervisor immediately the year after. All of these became possible because of action and passion. I started as a one-man team working on technologies related to Computer Vision and AI before my own product was released to the market. Now, I have my own team, working on several projects.
My profession also gave me several opportunities to meet a lot of technical experts from different companies. One of them is the leading AI Engineer of Square Enix. Some of the people I met asked from which Philippine University I graduated and I proudly answer, CIT University!:
