Golden Key Spotlight: Emmanuel Pichay

When we run into rejection, we can either be held down by it or learn from it and move forward as a braver person. Someone who has taken rejection and genuinely grown from it is Golden Key member Emmanuel Pichay. 

“This all started back in high school, and I liked this one girl and long story short, I asked her out, she laughed, and my judgment was clouded, and I couldn’t do well in school, and I didn’t know what I wanted to do from that point,” reveals Emmanuel. “And my friends just kept motivating me to graduate on time, and so I did. And I went to community college from that point, and that’s where I started figuring things out slowly, and now here I am two honor societies, about to make that three.”

Emmanuel Pichay is working on his pre-med degree in Human Science and Human Nutrition at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. He joined Golden Key in the Fall of 2020 and regularly participates in his campuses’ chapter events, where he feels he has learned good time management skills. 

“Honestly, Golden Key impacted my life by being a second chance for me to live life the way I used to be, a good, hardworking, academic achiever,” says Emmanuel. “It motivated me to do better than where I am right now.”

While Emmanuel has excelled academically this year, he has also struggled to stay afloat this year. He is among the many students who the Coronavirus Pandemic heavily impacted.

“My biggest challenge in my academic career is this pandemic that we’re living in right now,” Emmanuel reflects. “Not many students can afford to pay tuition themselves, just like me, and it’s definitely clouded my judgment and clouded their judgment–thinking how am I going to afford to pay my tuition? And with all the Zoom lecture teaching, it’s thinking how is this going to be easy on us students? And the way I look at it is, I’ve learned to adapt to the sudden changes.”

Emmanuel copes with the challenges of the pandemic by building a solid support system around himself. He finds the most comfort in making friends and is always trying to expand his friend circle.

“My biggest supporter right now, I would have to say, is my new friends at our campus church,” Emmanuel shares. “I recently just went back to church, and everyone I met there is really good students and really good friends, and I can always go to them when I’m in distress, or I might be stressed out from school, they’re fun to talk to, and they always talk about their academic careers and their line of work.”

Emmanuel would like to advise any new members that “It’s okay to take your time in life when it comes to schools and to figuring things out, just don’t take too long of a time figuring things out.”