How to Surpass your Limits
Jun 07, 2022
SUMMARY
When the environment rewards mediocre performance and misconduct, would you stop aiming for excellence? No, you are meant to work well and overcome your limits in order to get to the next level of success. Our guest in this first episode of summa cum laude talks is Justine John Serdoncillo. He graduated from Syracuse University with the degree of aerospace engineering summa cum laude. His tips to surpass his limits include:
- Prayer. I don't think I can do it all myself. I have to get strength from God.
- I schedule my tasks. There are several useful apps to be on time and work well.
- Rest is important to maintain productivity and endurance.
- Focus on understanding the topics. The grades will just be a bonus to the knowledge you get.
- Education is a big investment. Use your time well.
- I surround myself with people who have goals and want to do better and work harder.
- I face my hardships with calmness. I don't react to everything that I experience.
- Freedom means you could do what you want to do. Your conscience will be there to guide you.
- Your actions will have consequences.
- Emotions will always be hard to manage at the moment. Address them properly.
INSPIRATIONAL QUOTES
TRANSCRIPT
AVIC: I'm a former academician having spent 28 years in a local university. I have risen from the ranks as an instructor and I retired with the rank of Associate Professor. Now I am enjoying myself doing online education. In my past life I graduated summa cum laude from the University of the East. I landed in the top 20 of the CPA board exam. I have built an academic career where I became very well known on my research on work-life balance, my courses on managing people and ethics in management.
Now shifting to online education sometimes I forget these achievements. I get to be really concerned that I have limited skills on online marketing on online entrepreneurship that sometimes I forget that I could surpass these limitations as I have done before. Sometimes these concerns are also called limiting beliefs. I am limited by the thoughs that really I cannot succeed in this online world.
I know that there are also many people out there who could be bogged down by seeming limitations, overwhelming limitations. Sometimes in the current realities you might have leaders, managers, top executives who might not be achievers and you might say "what's the use of achieving so much if what is accepted is really low performance?" Ifpeople can succeed without really being achievers, if people can go up the ranks without getting into higher education, why aim to achieve so much if what is accepted is sometimes low standards. Sometimes there could be all of this fake news and you might say you can also earn money without even thinking about what you have achieved in your education, like you can just like threaten people, be very unkind (that doesn't need education) why would I be relying on really aiming so high in my life? If the people who somehow succeed in society are not really educated... Sometimes we can get into these feelings that I don't need to succeed, I don't need to aim so high in life right now.
I know that sometimes if I feel this, there could be many other people who could be in a similar situation. Hence, in this inaugural live stream when it comes to achieving high and overcoming limitations I have created this section in my channel called summa cum laude talks so that I could interview or I could have a conversation with fellow summa cum laude graduates. Some of them probably just recently graduated or later on we can have people from different ages and the common thing is that they have surpassed their limitations, they have really achieved so much at the university level. Hence they have a track record and really the habit that they will need to succeed better when they go into the workplace.
I'm very happy that today I have my first guest Justine John Serdoncillo who graduated from Syracuse university in New York state. He graduated with the degree of aerospace engineering and with latin honors summa cum laude. I'm very happy that he is able to come now. I think this is 9 p.m in manila and it could be 9 00 am in New York so let's see if we can get him here
Good morning Justine! how are you?
JUSTINE: I'm all good here in New York state and it's a sunny day outside.
AVIC: Okay that's great! You seem to live like in an attic.
JUSTINE: Yes I live in the third floor of our house.
AVIC: Let us go to the first question if you're ready. Just to be sure first of all Justine. I looked into your bio in linkedin and there I thought I saw a different name. Are you really called Justine.
JUSTINE: So my actual name is Justine John Serdoncillo and I've been called by different nicknames. actually in Philippine Science I actually was called Serds in grade school. I was called Justine in high school but in college I actually go by JJ because it's a lot easier to pronounce and they don't like misspelling the e at the end. what's why Justine is okay.
AVIC: Why did you ever think of going to Syracuse university? You can just go in any place, you can just be here in the country. Why did you ever aim to be in Syracuse?
JUSTINE: To be honest my main plan was to study in the Philippines and I actually applied to different universities in the Philippines such as UP and Ateneo and I was accepted to those universities. But there was a side plan with me and my parents where I was going to go to university in the United States. Although these universities in the Philippines are prestigious and they are good, there seems to be a lack of those that actually offer aerospace engineering which is a major that I really wanted to do. It is offered by different universities abroad and Syracuse was actually one of the universities. Thankfully I was able to be accepted into it and that's where I am right now.
AVIC: Okay so I got into some ranking articles and really Syracuse is really well known when it comes to aerospace and aeronautical engineering. Did you say you also applied in other US universities? DID you really envision yourself right after graduating from high school that you're going to land in Syracuse campus?
JUSTINE: Yes more or less because as much as possible I wanted to study in the New York state area.
AVIC: Okay that's great and why did you choose aerospace engineering? I just read that it's as difficult as mechanical engineering.
JUSTINE: It is somehow similar. Like any other engineering field, it is mostly focused on math and science which is something that I've been interested into since I was a young age. But additionally why I eventually chose aerospace engineering is because I was also interested not just on the math and science field but also in the concept of flying. I was interested in flying and going to outer space and exploring. I think for myself mechanical engineering and other engineering fields aren't enough and I wanted to focus on as well in to the research of fluid flow and just like fluid dynamics which you can't really find in other engineering fields.
AVIC: You know I I was smiling earlier when you said I want to go to outer space because it's like I want to go to the Divisoria. What motivated you to like going to outer space.
JUSTINE: I think it's more because that our world isn't just the earth. We have a vast amount of space that we still have to see and discover. And every single thing that we will see is magnificent, it's beautiful, it awakens our curiosity and it makes us to want more. And aside from the concept of space itself and trying to achieve, it's not an achievement of just a single person. Just like going to the moon before, even if that was done by Americans I think every single person felt proud of having that achievement. And I want to contribute and use my skills to be part of that group that makes those dreams attainable. I don't necessarily have to go to the moon, I will just facilitate that there will be many developments there in that area. I would want to be part of the team that works to get there.
AVIC: Aside from landing in Syracuse which is a top university and getting into aerospace engineering, you also ended your studies with summa cum laude honors, could you give us some tips to getting the highest latin honors.
JUSTINE: I try to keep my my method simple and I think with simplicity comes that you can focus on your tasks better. First, I always try to pray as much as possible because I know that I'm like far away from home and doing a hard major and also with goals that are pretty hard to attain. I really start with prayer because I don't think I can do it myself. I have to get strength from God. And of course I also give back and show my gratitude in praying. Aside from prayer I also think it's necessary that you always try to schedule your tasks. I use multiple calendars and I use multiple checklists so that I can make sure that all my tasks are being done on time and that I'm doing it really well. Aside from scheduling and praying, the last tip would be to find balance. finding balance is important because when people try to be overachievers they tend to overwork and overwork isn't good. It's important to remember that rest is also productive and that working too much will eventually lead to poor performance. It's important to keep your mind away from work sometimes so that you could focus on just doing your hobbies. And also that's a good motivation for you to keep going, moving forward. It's building endurance.
AVIC: It's my favorite topic - balancing work and life. Right you have time to study, you have time to pray, you have time to do physical exercise. But for the sake of the young people here who are still studying, could you give us an idea of how your day schedule is like? How many hours do you attend in school and then how many hours do you study personally.
JUSTINE: Let me think about it for a second. Looking back into last year's schedule, I used to wake up around 5 30 a.m and then for that time I tried to prepare myself, e.g. get a drink and a quick meal before I head out to go to the gym which is a thing that I like doing so that I can start my day right and so that I feel energized. I feel like because I've gone the gym in the morning that means I can do pretty much anything in the afternoon. So I work out for around one hour to one and a half hours in the gym. After that I go home and get ready and I have class for around six hours. Actually since my schedule is pretty random between the week and there's also gaps between my classes, I try to as much as possible do homework during those times and then I get home around six or so. I use that time to prepare for the next day which means I could be preparing meals or I could be preparing for work or I could be preparing my clothes and just my stuff because my day varies from day to day.
AVIC: So within the week how many hours on the average per week do you dedicate to personal study?
JUSTINE: I use the tracking app called Forest. In Forest, you can track the number of hours that you do for studying, for working out ,and for pretty much anything that you put in there. And for every work that you do, you build the tree which motivates you to build a forest which is where the app title comes from. I can remember that I go around 20 to 30 hours of study per week. It's cool because for every session you help build a tree or a plant. And the longer your session is the bigger your plant is or your tree is. So at the end of the week or at the end of the month or at the end of the day you can see how many plants you have, the different sizes of plants that you have. You could pretty much assess as well and I think it's more of a positive reinforcement for you to do more. Aside from that, you also get coins when you work and after a certain amount of coins, you can use those coins to actually donate a physical tree that the company of Forest app will do for you.
AVIC: Do you still have time for social media? Does it show in some form of a shrub in the app?
JUSTINE: I still do have time for social media and to be honest like most Filipinos I get engaged in social media for a long amount of time. But as much as possible I try to track my social media time through app limits or through screen time in my iPhone. And of course I try to put limits on it so I don't spend too much time on it. As much as possible I try to lessen the number of hours or minutes that I spend on it.
AVIC: You mentioned that you used several calendars, isn't that confusing to have several calendars? In one of my talks somebody said that he started putting all the calendars together because he missed a school activity He used to have a calendar for the family, a calendar for the office, etc. So how does it work having multiple calendars for you not to miss anything in other calendars?
JUSTINE: I don't miss anything from my calendars. My main calendar that I use right now is Google calendar. That has all of my tasks- all my events, all of my homework, schoolwork, etc. But I also have a calendar that I use for school purposes which has my homework, my class schedule. The reason why I use multiple calendars and why it's not confusing for me is that I can actually integrate my work calendar which is from another app. I can export that calendar and sync it to my Google calendar so that everything that I change through my work calendar will reflect in my main calendar. And that's where basically yes I have one unified calendar where I integrate everything.
AVIC: In the 4 years of studying aerospace engineering, was there any change in strategy and study techniques as you try to monitor your progress? For instance, if you're aiming to be summa cum laude, was there some greater speed or greater studies at some point? How did you develop those strategies as you adjusted to really getting that grade that can attain the GPA needed to be summa cum laude.
JUSTINE: I'm not sure if this is a common experience for all but actually my lowest grade was from my first semester of school in college. From that semester I saw that I was able to get high marks but at the same time I felt that I I didn't think I put in enough which means that I can do more and I think that I can achieve more. And through the years of course as my workload got more and more and as my responsibility got more and more, I was thinking that I had to change my strategies a bit, my study methods. For instance, before I actually used to take all of my notes just in paper which is a common thing to do but afterwards I decided that it's best to have all of my notes online. I invested in in a touchscreen laptop or basically something that you could use for online notes. I had that idea so that in my latter semesters I could always try to look back in my previous notes and I don't have to have the physical copy for it. Of course physical notes will take space and will time to go through. Aside from that I also made sure that, because it's common in engineering exams that even if you understand the topic you might not have enough time to do it just because the topic is hard and there's a lot of questions to answer, I actually switched my priority from just understanding but also trying to work fast. By trying to work fast of course my study strategies changed which meant that I really had to practice more and had to do practice exams and I had to time myself. So I think those are the main ones that really helped me get to where I am right now.
AVIC: Did you aim to be summa cum laude from first year, in first semester?
JUSTINE: My first semester average was 3.74. I actually wasn't here in Syracuse yet. I did a special summer program abroad. was in Madrid that time. Being in Madrid, being in another country of course you're more inclined to focus on having fun and traveling rather than academics which is what happened to me. After receiving my grades, it wasn't that I was not satisfied with it but it was more of seeing an opportunity to be better and do better. In high school I wasn't really one of the top students so I wanted to change that and I wanted to achieve something that I haven't gotten before. I was just setting goals to get scores as high as possible and it wasn't really about the scores that I focused on. It was more of understanding the topic because I wanted to get something from my degree which is just the knowledge that you get from your various classes. And I think it's more of the grades being just a bonus to the understanding and the knowledge that you get. Somehow the result is that you got higher grades because you understood.
AVIC: When did you realize you could aim better like you could surpass your performance in high school? j
JUSTINE: I graduated with high honors in Philippine Science but it wasn't in the top 20 or top 10 of my batch. I think it was after that first semester of college that I felt that college meant a new leaf, a new life, like a blank slate that I can start with. I don't have my past to define me anymore. I I can do better then why shouldn't I? So that's when have to put in the work. I wanted to get everything as much as I can.
AVIC: I like what you said that the past does not define me because I think that's very crucial when you want to overcome your limitation. And one limitation is what has happened in the past, your life record. But a way to get beyond it is really thinking that that's history and I can make my future like I can create my future. The history or the past is like a standard for me that I could achieve that but I could achieve even better. When you were talking about being in Madrid, did you feel the temptation to just do tourism? I've encountered Filipinos when I was studying for the PhD degree in the IESE Business School in Barcelona, I met some Filipinos students in Spain who are really spending time outside the classroom. And I could give them the excuse that you know you it's not always that you are out of your country. Probably you will go back to your country so you better take time to be there by the beach, to go to Seville. I mean it's really it's really a huge temptation to focus on doing tourism and parties and really enjoy life rather than do your studies. So what would be your advice to your younger self in that first year of college?
JUSTINE: It's more of this. Yes, having fun and enjoying is important in life but at the same time it's crucial to remember that education is a big investment. Even though the past wouldn't matter that much, the past is still there and the habits and the knowledge and the wisdom that you've built will be with you for the rest of your life. This past is important in building who you are.
AVIC: To become what you are right now you must have major influences. Could you tell us your top three influencers? I mean the ones who have influenced your life and your philosophy when it comes to studying and achieving.
JUSTINE: My top influencer would be my family. Having my family beside me is really important because again as I mentioned earlier I don't think I could have done this just by myself. I think without the financial support from my parents and without the extra motivations from my sisters (because I wanted to be someone that they could look up to) I would not get a good motivation for me to work harder. Aside from that a good influence would be my friends because here in Syracuse yes there's a lot of temptation to just go party but from that I saw that I could try to fight that off by surrounding myself with people who have goals and who want to do better and just work harder. And I think my next few answers would not be as common but I try to practice this philosophy called stoicism which means that you're facing your hardships and you're facing your life with basically calmness. And you're not trying to react to everything that you experience. And lastly I think what's important for me that changed who I am is basically my hardships and my independence because starting from a younger age I've been independent. My parents have taught me to be independent. Even from grade four or grade five I was doing international competitions without my parents. So it was just me and a couple of guardians. At the same time starting from grade five I was already commuting from Dasmarinas to Alabang to go to summer training and I was doing that by myself. Here going here to college from Madrid to going here to the US I had to figure out a lot of the stuff myself. Of course it might be scary at first but I think it's really important because you build confidence in yourself that you can survive and that you can try to face your problems
AVIC: That's interesting when you mentioned the family and at the same time being stoic. Was there ever time that you really missed them and you can say no to them and study first. They will still be there. Did you ever fear that with the Covid-19 pandemic, you really have to be there with them, here locally. Was there ever a time you preferred being with your family, studying from home here rather than somewhere else away from your family.
JUSTINE: Being stoic about those feelings doesn't necessarily mean being cold. I know that Covid time was actually pretty hard for me and that it was advised for us to not stay in the university which is why luckily I was staying with my aunt in South Carolina. Of course I I still wanted to be close with my parents and my sisters, and at the same time there were a lot of students who were taking gap years so they could be home. And I was thinking if I took my classes in the Philippines I think I would have a much harder time just because of the time difference. I wanted to finish on time still not only because of the culture of finishing on time but also some financial aspects to it. I was enrolled in the university and I wanted to to finish my degree on time so from those thoughts I was still lucky that I was still surrounded by family and I think I just remedied that by making sure that I communicate with them often. It's lucky that we're living here in this century where if you miss somebody you can just easily text them and easily call them. Now sometimes calling and texting isn't the only thing that you could do online. Sometimes you can even play games with them. I play games with my sisters and have fun which of course is a good bonding activity for everyone.
AVIC: Somebody has to lose sleep for being in a time zone.
JUSTINE: I'm not really losing sleep. I'm more of like spending time.
AVIC: I like that the way you qualify your statements like when you say being stoic is not being cold, etc. It's really trying to to examine your perspective and not giving yourself excuse but at the same time it's not even justifying. You are just trying to know what you're doing. I like that and I think that could be very helpful for our young audience. Then for my next question, you did you ever get into some mischievous idea that you're free to do whatever you like, your parents are not there anyway. How did you overcome that feeling only of having unbridled freedom being there alone?
JUSTINE: When you're free that doesn't necessarily mean that you could do all the mischief. Freedom just means that you could do what you want to do. I used that freedom to do more stuff that I wanted to do which was more active stuff, more sports, more working out and just hanging out with friends. At the back of my head there's always this thought that I think your conscience will always be there to guide you and reason with you to show you that there's always a limit to things and too much of one thing will eventually be a bad thing.
AVIC: You're very lucky that it seems in terms of moral formation you really got it well from your family. But for some young people they might not have that. How can they overcome that feeling of unbridled freedom if they don't get that moral formation from the family?
JUSTINE: Make sure to remember that your actions will have consequences because even with the concept of alcohol being legal at 21, you can drink and you could party but at the same time after the next day after you drink you will feel bad and you will lose focus as well. It will have a domino effect and it can affect more stuff.
AVIC How did you choose your friends? Did you also have some change in friendship because somehow this person is not helping you anymore.
JUSTINE: I think for me to be honest, in life sometimes you don't also get to choose who your friends are but at the same time you get to choose what your actions are. Most of my friends are engineers and at the same time not all engineers will have the same mindset as I have with working but that I can just let them be who they are. I could also try to push them harder you know so they can work together yeah so at the same time while I'm helping them and as they improve they're also helping me so it's always like a give and take. I don't think that you should be passive with with the stuff around you. You could be active as well and just be the change that you need.
AVIC: That's important that you have to be the change that you need or the change that also others need. So do you feel that responsibility that you can set a good example to young people and what are you doing about it. Do you have some plans on be able to be more visible because other people need good examples?
JUSTINE: I would say that I'm really thankful for you for giving me this opportunity to be in your live stream I think just even with the smallest tasks like being in a live stream such as this I think it's a really good opportunity for other people to see as well and so that they could learn something and you know like hopefully I inspire them to be better and achieve their goals.
AVIC: When you work, do you always think about that responsibility for other people. How do you balance thinking of yourself and thinking of the others, like living your own life at the same time being responsible that others can be looking up to you.
JUSTINE: I have to admit that there is a pressure like an internal pressure and sometimes that pressure can be harmful if you think about others too much and not about yourself. But for me it's also necessary to think that you could only do so much and others' improvement is almost like 50 50. It's like 50 of that can come from me motivating them to do harder but at the same time it's also up to their responsibility to actually put in the work. Here in Syracuse I actually also work as a tutor facilitator and I can see that my students are trying to work hard but of course there are also some students who with all of my help will not really use it. But at the same time it's important that you should not put all of the weight on your shoulders because you're living your own life and you're not trying to live and bring up everyone's life. You could only do so much to help as well and it's still important that you help and do your best but make sure that every time you bring yourself down because you didn't think that you helped someone enough it will negatively affect yourself and will also negatively affect how you help others in the future.
AVIC: Right but with that I think that's also a way to include them in your prayers. As you said earlier your tip is really to pray and I think it's good also to pray for those people that you're helping. Whatever way it's really helpful because studies can be really challenging now. I mean in my time there was no Facebook and sometimes you can see to be summa cum laude then could be much easier than now with all of these temptations. But having a tutor also to motivate, to inspire, to guide you can really be a big help so I also congratulate you for that, for taking the paid work or that volunteer work also. For my next question, somebody asked me to ask you how you deal with your vulnerabilities. Having achieved so much, do you feel you have any weakness at all?
JUSTINE: To be honest having achievements as I have right now it's also easy to be afraid of going off like you think that this is the best part of your life and that everything else can go downhill so there's always a pressure that you won't be as good anymore. And at the same time I also I actually struggle with self-doubt and imposter syndrome. But then I always try to work around these things and I always try to address them properly and aside from that everyone including myself has emotions. Even if in the end I do overcome them and I get around with them during that period of time it will always be something that's hard to manage.
AVIC: Right I can imagine. For my last question because I can see that we're almost ending the one hour, have you experienced there in New York a sort of discrimination for being a Filipino, for being an Asian?
JUSTINE: Yeah to be honest, I have experienced one. There was this one time where I was in a grocery with friends and this was during the Covid season and we had masks on and we were trying to distance from other people. But there was this elderly lady, she was an American and she just actually went behind us. You could see that she was like mockingly trying to cough. You could see that she was trying to imply that the virus was from Asians.
AVIC: I think it still is an issue right now- Asian hate. We have to always pray, right? You never know what can happen with that hatred. So I'll pray for you also and for many other Filipinos. I myself had experienced discrimination in Barcelona and in many other places. We just have to pray for these people causing them. For my last question, what would be your top three values?
JUSTINE: I think the top three that I tried to put to use in my life would be first is honesty. I think it's really important. And the second one is patience because of course the work that you put in won't always reflect immediately and you just have to be patient. The last one is building relationships with other people because again it's important that you have someone to rely on during your hard times and of course like even as humans we're not meant to live this life just by ourselves. Getting that extra help from other people is really important so you can get to where you want to be.
AVIC: Are in the mood of applying for work? Or do you have a job already.
JUSTINE: I actually just confirmed going to grad school in the university of Minnesota. It is more specialization in the field of aerodynamics and engineering mechanics. I am working with a professor that I've worked with here in Syracuse and she focuses on fluid dynamics and fluids.
AVIC: Wow good luck! And thank you very much, Justine for this time and I'm sure that you will be able to motivate many young people to really surpass themselves. I don't think this is only for young people. Even mature ones and adults still need to aim to surpass themselves. And there are many techniques and many apps right now that you mentioned in this live stream. So I hope you have a great day today.
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