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When Erlyn May Castillon Gener graduates as Magna Cum Laude and Class 2026 Salutatorian of the University of Southern Mindanao (USM), she will not simply be celebrating academic success. She will be celebrating a journey that took nearly 15 years, crossed several career paths, survived repeated setbacks, and demanded more than one fresh start.
Long before she found her place in the College of Agriculture, Gener had already experienced what many would consider failure. She shifted programs, watched her original batch graduate without her, struggled to find stable work, lost a long-awaited military career just days before completion, and returned home unsure of what direction her life would take.
Yet those experiences eventually led her back to the classroom, where she discovered a new passion, a new purpose, and what she now considers her true calling.
Gener first entered USM in 2011 as an Accountancy student. However, after failing to meet the retention requirements of the program, she shifted to Business Administration major in Marketing Management. The transition added another year to her stay in the university, leaving her behind the batch she had originally expected to graduate with.
When the Class of 2015 marched across the stage, she could not bring herself to watch. Instead, she left for Davao City and worked as a seasonal call center agent, hoping to move past the disappointment of seeing her peers reach a milestone she had missed.
“When my original batch graduated, I couldn’t bear to watch,” Gener recalled. “I felt left behind.”
Even before completing her degree, challenges had already tested her determination. During the final stages of writing her thesis, she was confined due to dengue fever. Despite her condition, she continued working on her manuscript and eventually completed her degree.
After graduation, Gener faced another difficult reality. Despite holding a college degree, stable employment proved difficult to secure. Determined to build a career, she applied for the Philippine Army Officer Candidate Course in 2016 but did not make it through the selection process.
Rather than giving up, she accepted jobs wherever opportunities appeared. She worked as a waitress, a position that exposed her to criticism from people who questioned why a college graduate would take such work. She later worked in other positions while continuing to search for a career path that would allow her to grow professionally.
Believing military service was still her calling, she continued pursuing opportunities in the armed forces. She applied for the Philippine Air Force Officer Candidate Course and later tried again with the Philippine Army.
Years of persistence appeared to pay off when Gener passed the Philippine Army Officer Candidate Course Class 53-2020 Kasiklab and underwent nearly a year of military training. After years of pursuing the dream, she finally saw the possibility of becoming an officer.
However, only four days before graduation, she was informed that she would not be commissioned due to an honor-related violation for which she was required to assume responsibility.
“I felt like I had lost everything I worked for,” she said.
As she struggled to process the loss of her military career during the COVID-19 pandemic, another hardship followed. She lost nearly all of her savings to a scam, wiping out money she had earned through years of hard work and sacrifice.
Determined to rebuild, Gener carried her resumes and application letters from one office to another, hoping someone would give her a chance. She climbed building after building, submitted applications wherever opportunities appeared, and waited for calls that never came.
One memory from that period remains vivid in her mind.
After another unsuccessful day of job hunting, she was walking back to her boarding house under heavy rain. Her documents were tucked under her arm, her shoes were already worn from weeks of searching, and she could not stop thinking about how much she had already lost.
“I remember walking in the rain carrying my papers and asking myself what else I needed to do,” she said. “I felt like every opportunity was being taken away from me.”
The series of disappointments pushed her into one of the lowest points of her life. It was during this difficult period that the support of her family, particularly her grandmother, helped her find the strength to keep moving forward.
In 2021, Gener returned to Mindanao and began rebuilding her life. Together with her family, she helped manage a backyard piggery, pouring her energy into the small enterprise and finding purpose in the daily work of caring for livestock.
Just as things seemed to be improving, African Swine Fever struck Cotabato Province and wiped out their entire stock.
For Gener, the loss was another painful reminder of how quickly plans could fall apart. The piggery had become more than a source of income. It represented a fresh start after years of disappointment and uncertainty.
Watching every pig die left her questioning why every effort seemed to end the same way.
“I remember sitting there and asking God, ‘Why me? What else do You want from me?'” she recalled. “It felt like every time I tried to rebuild my life, something would happen and everything would fall apart again.”
Seeing her struggle, her father encouraged her to return to school. At first, she hesitated. She already held a degree and knew how uncertain the future could be. But through her experience in livestock production, she had developed a growing interest in agriculture and rediscovered a love for science that had been with her since childhood.
Looking back, Gener believes those moments of uncertainty eventually changed the way she viewed failure.
“I realized that maybe God wasn’t closing doors to punish me,” she said. “Maybe He was redirecting me to something I had not yet discovered.”
She initially considered pursuing Veterinary Medicine, but when slots were unavailable, she enrolled in the Bachelor of Science in Agriculture program at USM instead.
Although she originally expected to specialize in Animal Science, she eventually found herself drawn to Entomology. The field challenged her, inspired her curiosity, and gave her a sense of purpose she had struggled to find for years.
Returning to college at a later stage in life was not always easy. Surrounded by younger classmates, she often felt different from her peers. Yet the discipline she developed through years of work experience and military training became one of her greatest strengths.
The challenges did not end when she returned to the classroom. During her years as an agriculture student, Gener faced personal struggles that tested her resolve, including the loss of a pregnancy and the end of a relationship. At one point, she was even encouraged to leave school behind and choose a different path.
Instead, she focused on the goal she had set for herself.
“Studying became my refuge,” she said. “With everything happening around me, I found peace in learning. It reminded me why I chose to start over.”
For Gener, returning to school was never about proving others wrong. It was about keeping a promise to herself.
“This time, I wasn’t competing with other people,” she said. “I was competing with the person I used to be. I wanted to become better than who I was yesterday.”
This time, she was not studying to meet expectations or prove something to others. She was pursuing something she genuinely loved.
Her commitment to learning eventually earned her academic distinction, graduating as Magna Cum Laude and Class 2026 Salutatorian.
Today, Gener hopes her story encourages others who feel delayed, discouraged, or afraid to begin again.
Many people see starting over as a sign of failure. For her, it became an opportunity to discover who she was and where she truly belonged.
“People think going back to zero later in life is a tragedy,” she said. “But four years will pass anyway. I’d rather spend four years pursuing what God placed in my heart than spend a lifetime wondering what could have been.”
The path was far from easy, but it taught her that life’s setbacks do not always signal the end of a dream. Sometimes, they are simply leading a person toward a different one.
For Gener, every closed door eventually led to a new beginning.
“A closed door from God is not a rejection,” she said. “It is a redirection.”
