MINT Graduation Ceremony
30 April 2015
Our distinguished Guest of Honor Emily Abrera; Parents; Special Guests; and most importantly, MINT’s first graduates. Good afternoon.
Since 2010 and even earlier, a group of investors bound by the common advocacy that is education, got together and crafted a blueprint for a learning institution geared to provide our high school graduates with a university platform that is competitive, creative, innovative, and underscored by an acumen for entrepreneurship. Collaborative learning was the major feature of the MINT philosophy; our students learn from renowned practitioners in business and the arts enhanced by a school environment and pedagogic mechanisms that also encouraged learning from each other, and often through self-discovery.
A deliberate extensive use of technology was de rigueur; classrooms were designed uniquely to harness and challenge the mind in order to enhance the creative learning process. Contact with various learning stimuli was stressed through activities within and without the school. Top-notch experts from various fields were invited to give special lectures and performances as well as personally demonstrate their craft to our students for first-hand appreciation and challenge to excel. Essentially, we brought the real world into our classrooms.
Today is a historic landmark for MINT. We celebrate our First-ever Graduation from our school of performing arts involving music business management; our school of technology involving information technology and computer science; our school of business involving marketing and entrepreneurial management; and our school of design and visual arts involving new media art and film. Our “children” have grown to creative and intellectual maturity throughout our first four years under our continuing care and tutelage. Our faculty made up of men and women who are respected practitioners in their own right, remain our recognized partners in daily honing our MINT graduates through the years in order to be able to compete in their chosen fields and professions when finally, our students emerge from the learning environment that is MINT’s to the world’s unforgiving race to excellence, productivity, rewards, and accolades. For this and everything else, we salute our MINT Faculty -- together with our school staff support without whom our efforts are incomplete -- with much appreciation and kudos for truly a job well done!
A significant element of our institutional profile is our social responsibility to our economically challenged but deserving youth who have the qualities and capabilities to be schooled at MINT. This year, one out of every 5 students is a scholar receiving the same standards of learning excellence in business and arts.
Emerging from the safe confines of MINT, our Graduates are ready to face the rabid competition in today’s global marketplace confident of the skills and mentoring acquired at MINT. As our Graduates have grown, I daresay so have we. From a mere concept four years ago, MINT now enjoys the popularity and acceptance as a preferred institution in our creative and commercial disciplines. We are regarded as the weather vane by our competitors, heralding the changes and innovations in performing arts, design and visual arts together with fresh strides in business and technology for a well-rounded foundation to launch a well-placed, lucrative career in business and arts.
At this point, I digress to inform you that our Leadership Awardee for Entrepreneurial Management, Gino Domingo, is unable to be with us in today’s Graduation Ceremonies. However much we miss Gino, we are at the same time most happy for him, reason being that Gino was snagged by a very aggressive employer even before he graduated. This same company has since sent him abroad to lead an important assignment in Vietnam.
Looking back, I’d like to see you – MINT’s first-ever Graduates – as our scorecard of excellence. You are the living proof of what MINT is. Your success is MINT’s success.
While we face tonight’s Graduation with mixed emotions, what is paramount is pride among our Graduates for a race well run, a job well done. We share our parents’ pride in finally seeing our children emerge from the cocoon of MINT into the competitive business of launching one’s career and future. We thank our parents for being our staunch partners in providing our children with the requisite tools to bravely meet the fresh challenges of the future. To our Graduates: know with confidence that your mentors at MINT will still be here to give you advice even after you’ve left our classrooms. You carry MINT’s badge of upward mobility – our green arrow – and be rest assured that your MINT affiliation will not cease tonight; rather, it is your guarantee of belonging to the MINT community wherever life and career might bring you. MINT is with you as you are with MINT.
Warmest of congratulations my beloved Graduates!