A Love Letter to NYU

Dear NYU Steinhardt, 

Five years ago, I took a gap year — the boldest and most daunting decision I’ve ever made. Eyebrows were raised coupled with heads shaking… all kinds of doubts and judgements were hurled at me at the age of 18. To make sense of what I experienced growing up in a school culture that uplifted certain students, I decided to pursue Education Studies at NYU Steinhardt in order to understand what was going on. I searched tirelessly for concepts, theories and research that would serve as answers or solutions with one mission in mind: to shed light on these educational issues and social inequalities. I dreamed of returning home to shake up the system by demanding for fairness and justice, and breaking all barriers.

But I was wrong. I realized that there’s more to this world than seeking for fairness and justice. I was driven by pain, not love. I found a community, most importantly, a family that illuminated truth, beauty and goodness. Nor was it about imposing solutions, but rather, proposing them. Not every battle needs to be fought, just chosen.

From the bottom of my heart, I would like to thank my Education Studies family (most especially Carol Anne Spreen and Jamie Remmers) for giving me a chance and the space to grow. They believed in me before I did. If it were not for their socio-emotional support and intellectual push, I would not be standing here still fighting the good fight. Because this part of the world loved and uplifted me, I started believing in it again. And because of them, I fell deeply in love with scholarship. They simultaneously pointed to my strengths and nurtured them, but also constructively challenged and stretched them. Uniting my personal experience with larger structural analyses of educational equity, I grew in curiosity and developed a passion for social justice, particularly student well-being and student empowerment in higher education. 

Yup, that’s what love can do to a person! Late bloomer or not, I learned that the power resides in us to transform far and wide regardless. In this four-year journey, I reencountered God and found a new vision: to inform and humanize the world by doing what’s true, right and kind. Lastly, never give up because just when you’re on the edge, that’s when the breakthrough usually happens. Cheers to healing schools and societies, conquering one step at a time, together for the better. 

As no stranger to an unconventional path and a sense of timing with its own clock, today, I celebrate my graduation virtually with no toga, but simply with gratitude and my dearest sister and quarantine buddy Christine.

Thank you, NYU!

Yours Truly, 

Kate Cabigao