TV host Joyce Pring shares 15-year journey to a college degree

MANILA, Philippines, June 16 ------ While already a successful TV host, Joyce Pring could not shake off the desire to close an important chapter in her life obtaining a college degree — a 15-year journey that she celebrated and shared in a lengthy social media post.

On Instagram, the 32-year-old mother of two detailed her decade-long frustration with having to postpone her studies and start working at the age of 17 due to financial constraints, before finally pursuing her communications degree at the University of Perpetual Help.

“This situation crushed me. I had big dreams and I wanted to finish school. I was tired of constantly having to grow up fast in order to cope with the constant chaos that enveloped my life, but I had to adapt in order to survive,” Pring wrote. “I carried that pain and shame well into my young adulthood. I used to think about my ‘wasted’ potential — what I could’ve become if I had been given the chance to finish. But in my mid-20s, I began to realize: even though I didn’t follow the traditional path, God still made much of my life,” she shared.

Sure enough, good fortune followed Pring as she got her name out as the winner of the Myx VJ Search in 2011 and was working in GMA’s former top noontime show Eat Bulaga! by 2014. After establishing herself as a household name, Pring finally considered a return to college in 2023 through the continuous prodding of her manager, “Mama Betchay” Vidanes. She finally completed the last two years of her studies on the way to a long-awaited diploma.

Diploma or ‘diskarte?’

She said that Vidanes, “like any good mentor, she saw the dream I had buried.” “God’s blessings through diskarte (strategy) never erased my desire for a diploma. I didn’t tell many people when I started this journey. I needed to make sure I was doing it for the right reasons to close a chapter I’d left open 15 years ago. Not for applause. Just for me,” she said.

“I wanted to fulfill this dream, because diploma o diskarte is a false dichotomy; one can do both, even if it’s a long and arduous journey. I wanted to graduate so I can finally tell my 18-year-old self, crushed and dejected and forced to grow up fast that, despite everything she had to go through to get here, God has always been good, and He has always meant it all for good,” she added.

Pring, a Quezon City Science High School graduate who described herself as an avid learner, thanked her Perpetual professors, college dean, thesis adviser, friends, and family, particularly her husband, actor Juancho Triviño of Maria Clara at Ibarra fame, and their children, Eliam and Aggie.

Though already being encouraged to pursue postgraduate studies, Pring said that is “for an entirely different conversation.” “My joy and gratitude overflows, not only for this achievement, but for having had the privilege of learning just how capable, loved, supported, blessed, and believed in I am through this whole process- everything being a testament to God’s grace and faithfulness,” Pring continued. “All glory and honor belongs to Him.”

Source: rappler.com