The College of Engineering and Information Technology (CEIT) Week is an annual celebration of events made for Civil Engineering Students, Electrical Engineering Students, and Information Technology Students of Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Valenzuela (PLV). It is a three-day event that aims to nurture talents, test their wits, and discover new abilities while having fun at the same time. During these days, you can see students roaming around, taking pictures side by side, cheering their friends while slaying the catwalk, and rocking with the music as bands continue to perform. These are the common scenarios before the pandemic started.
When the pandemic started, the way of celebrating CEIT Week changed. Thanks to the students and three organizations behind this event namely: Association of Civil Engineering Students (PLV-ACES), Association of Electrical Engineering Students (PLV- AEES), and Valenzuela Information Technology Society (PLV-VITS) that collaborated their ideas and strategically planned the continuation of the celebration for the past two years. They became the savior of this event and became the way of bringing joy and happiness to the whole CEIT community during these tough times.
Transforming the normal face-to-face events to virtual events is not โeasy peasyโ. Lots of adjustments should be done, including the following of health protocols. The forums and seminars were transformed into webinars, where various professionals on their respective fields were invited to talk, lecture, and inspire students. This makes the students to just open their gadgets, enter conference links or watch live streaming, and enjoy the whole webinar anywhere they want. Electronic games like Mobile Legends and Valorant was used as substitute to face-to-face games. The normal raising of small whiteboards on quiz bees becomes the showing of whiteboards to the lenses of the camera. The two most awaited events: Dance Battle and Battle of the Bands became CEIT Got Talent and Mr. and Ms. CEIT became CEIT Next Top Model. Group performances were transformed into individual performances and pageants were transformed into photo challenges. This year, most of the events continue to run and some are going back in line, where they left off two years ago, like the Mr. and Ms. CEIT, to show again the diversity of beauty.
Transformation of events happen really fast. Resiliency is already in our nature. But even though we transform everything, there are still moments that are stuck in our minds๏ผ the moment where we are all in one place, making moments together.
Online interactions are the most convenient and safest way to execute the event. For this year, the theme of CEIT Week is โEclipse: Outshining in the Face of Challengesโ and it is inspired of the things we all experienced in the past๏ผchallenges we faced๏ผchallenges we outshined. In eclipse, we can see light behind the shadow and this only represents the lightness in every darkness; in simple word๏ผhope. The event is not only for fun, for enjoying, and for taking a break, but it is also a resemblance that no matter how difficult the situation is, we always find ways to make it through — to strive, and to make things possible. And that is a moment to celebrate.
