For those who have (very) keen eyes, you'll realize that my Twitter bio and my Facebook tagline now contains the phrase "Veritas et Excellentia." For those who are really keeping track, my Twitter profile now has a new maroon/dark crimson color scheme. Let me just clear everything up by saying that, yes, the phrase above will be my main motto for the next few months/years or so—and for a good reason.

Anyway, let me just give you a concise primer about what's been going on recently. For the past few weeks or so, I suddenly got a mild to extreme case of, what I call, "Harvard Fever"—a deep adoration bordering on addiction about anything Harvard University. I don't really know what gave me Harvard Fever, but I probably think it's Harvard University's CS50, although it could also be a variety of other factors.

My Harvard Fever got to a point where I actually almost applied to Harvard online. Needless to say, it was by a long shot for me to even try to apply for Harvard, let alone get into the school itself considering my current situation. I tried, sure, but it was hard to even try to apply. For starters, I'm a student in the Philippines and I graduated before the K-12 program was put into effect, which means that I also had 4 years of secondary education, and it was only through grades 6–10. Also, since I'm already a college student, I first thought that I was supposed to apply as a transferee student because I already gained credit in my Computer Science course. (Still, I'm just 17 years old.). There are a myriad of other problems that affected me even trying to apply, so I took another route instead—emulate the feeling of studying there.

Now, emulating the feeling and overall experience of studying there is a little harder than I expected. First, we don't have the large community Harvard does and a bunch of other things, but I tossed those aside and decided to try it anyway. I first adopted a new motto, one that includes Harvard's motto and I added my own bit following their motto. After a few Latin tutorials and translations, I finally settled with "Veritas et Excellentia" and used it from there on out.

So, why "Veritas et Excellentia"? Well, I put Veritas first because it's translation "truth" was easier to implement and because I consider truth to be more important than excellence. Though I consider both of them equally important, I believe that truth is more important because nowadays most people do all kinds of nasty and untruthful things to gain excellence. That's why I chose that motto and structured it that way because I plan on pursuing excellence while maintaining truthful to myself and to others. That's basically the literal translation of it, "truth and excellence." Truth while aiming for excellence.


Note: My Instagram bio (or whatever you call it) uses a similar but different phrase—"Veritas super omnia." I chose that because it follows in the footsteps of my main motto and because it directly means "truth above all else"/"truth above all."