The Haynayan Initiative, The Gift that Keeps on Giving

by John Kenneth Tria (Allosyndesis)

“I’ve changed. I’ve grown. This is Laida Magtalas 2.0. Wiser. Braver. Stronger. Bolder. Fiercer.”  Entering a new chapter of your life is a challenge, but the experiences you have accumulated renders you ready to face them just like Sarah Geronimo’s character in the hit Filipino romantic comedy “It Takes A Man and a Woman.”

As students of life, challenges fine-tune who we are now. We know not what to expect in the face of adversity, especially with no one to ask. Culture shocks us with lightning-fast bombardment of different views and practices we learn and experience. But eventually, we become accustomed to the culture.

However, the COVID-19 pandemic struck and changed the way we live, especially due to the unique predicaments that we are facing. Hence, inevitably, the situation altered the educational system of the country. Sadly, most approaches to drive around the roadblock favoured the privileged and were not inclusive of all the students. It is during these trying times that service is of the essence. A freshie entering the university through online classes probably cannot help but feel anxious of what is going to happen and how they could handle all the workload.

This is how all it started. This is the reason the five organizations, namely The UPLB Genetics Society; Symbiosis, The UPLB Biological Society; Philobioscientia, The UPLB Life Sciences Society; and The UPLB Microbiological Society joined forces and formed “The Haynayan Initiative”. It is a project that aims to help the incoming BS Biology freshies to appreciate Biology in a general sense by providing supplementary materials to prepare them for their future Biology courses. The initiative started this year, and the alliance of organizations shall conduct its yearly release. The UPLB Genetics Society took the responsibility of spearheading the project in this year’s installment.

Adapting into the university is like navigating a labyrinth, especially when the university assumes that the student mastered the basic concepts in different fields during senior high school. This is rarely the case, as catching up with peers applies a crushing self-applied pressure. They say “do things at your own pace” to a person comparing their progress to another in the academe. It may be true, but most of these students who are a few paces ahead usually grip tightly to their means of getting ahead. Now, this is where ReBIOer, which the four organizations prepared, comes into the picture.

ReBIOer: A Compendium of Supplementary Materials for BS Biology Freshmen made by students from IBS Organizations is a reviewer that contains lessons of fundamental Biology courses included in the UPLB BS Biology program. It is a material that previous B.S. Biology batches would have loved to have during their freshman year. Truly, one can only mutter the popular phrase “sana all” under their breaths. Why? Because the reviewer is truly comprehensive and contains the lessons, activities, and even links to supplementary materials that the freshies may pursue in enriching their understanding of their courses’ lessons. Most important of all, it is free!

The subjects included in the reviewer are Investigative Biology Laboratory (BIO 11.1), Biology and Applications of Microorganisms (MCB 11), Biodiversity (BIO 14), Genetics (BIO 30), and Ecology (BIO 150). These subjects encompass the eight majors that the freshmen could take in their third year which are Microbiology, Systematics, Plant Biology, Zoology, Wildlife Biology, Genetics, Cell and Molecular Biology, and Genetics. Through this, we hope to help them realize their interest that would allow them to seek the major where their passion lies.

Perhaps, the thought of the initiative only helping the freshmen crossed one’s mind. The initiative benefited the organizations who came together for the project to reach its fruition. Like usual major activities, the initiative established committees, namely Educations, Publicity, Copyright, Distribution, and Proofreading Committee. Members coming from different organizations worked in cooperation with each other to finish the reviewer before classes started to give the freshies time to study in advance. 

The process launched online, since we only planned to release soft copies of the reviewer. At the start, it was awkward, with only a few members interacting with each other. As time went by, the atmosphere lightened, and soon enough everyone transformed into an active contributor, sharing their opinions regarding several aspects of the reviewer. Everybody did their best to contribute and produce excellent outputs evident in ReBIOer. In addition, we sought for help from the IBS faculty to ensure that the contents of the reviewer are correct and well-organized while avoiding spoon-feeding of the freshies. The initiative united us to achieve a single goal, that is, to help the freshmen in their academics, especially during the pandemic.

The Haynayan Initiative molded itself into a discrete proof that the collaboration of IBS organizations accomplishes invaluable service to others. In each step of the way, we celebrated minor achievements and supported each other in whatever way we can. There were several trials while making the reviewer and meeting the deadlines, but everyone persevered and we could proudly release our work on August 31, 2020. As of now, over a hundred distributed copies helped the freshies in their studies.

In this chaotic and constantly changing world, it is important to use our experiences to become stronger and face our dilemmas, whatever they may be. We fight the current situation back, rendering them fangless in halting us from learning and advocating for change.