by AUBREY SHANE LIM
THE UNIVERSITY will be holding its in-person ‘Homecoming Walk’ for batches 2024 and 2025 on August 23, UST Secretary-General Rev. Fr. Louie Coronel confirmed.
“Batch 2024 and 2025 deserve this [to have their own Homecoming walk event], and I want to hear the ‘Go Uste’ chant from them live,” Coronel said during a mini press briefing with student newspapers.
Coronel emphasized that the event is a “Homecoming Walk,” to differentiate it from the incoming freshmen’s Welcome Walk.
“They’ve been welcomed already, so this is a homecoming walk,” Coronel said.
The Secretary-General said that while both events would have a mass celebration, a ‘Roarientation’ and a chance for students to walk under the Arch of the Centuries, the Homecoming Walk’s festivities would have slight differences from the incoming freshmen’s Welcome Walk
“Their program is different from the program for the freshmen. The freshmen will have their virtual orientation and library service orientation. This homecoming walk will focus more on welcoming them (sophomores and juniors) back,” Coronel said
Coronel emphasized the significance of the ‘Welcome Walk’ to the Thomasian experience, saying that these students will soon be “exiting the Arch.”
“How can you exit if you have not yet entered?” Coronel said.
The tradition of passing through the Arch of the Centuries began in 2002. Since then, the Freshmen Welcome Walk has been dubbed the University’s “Rite of Passage.”F
