LET passer in Top 10 says she deferred taking licensure exam for a year amid pressure

For Dhaenalene Evangelista, who was among the Top 10 passers in the 2019 Licensure Exam for Teachers, such feat can be done by being inspired rather than pressured.

"I was expected by everyone to take the board exam in September 2018. But I did not. Truth be told, I was unmotivated," Evangelista, who was Top 6, said in a Facebook post.

"When you graduate strong, with awards and all, people expect you to always be on your best, to always get it right. But in those moments, I simply couldn’t. I felt so lost and unsure, worried that I finished a degree I wasn’t made for."

Evangelista said while she was on a break, she spent time on her hobbies and bonded with the people who inspire her until she began feeling excited to take on challenges again. 

"I didn’t want to disappoint the people who believed in me and saw something in me, but I just couldn’t find the will to do what I had to do. I remember feeling so pressured and anxious. [And so] I did a lot of reflection [on my journey], until one surprising day, I woke up brimming with excitement and enthusiasm to go back to learning," she said.

Evangelista said she started to get her act together when she realized that she should not live her life based on other people's expectations and that she should take things at her own pace. 

"I replaced the word pressured into inspired, put in hard work, and combined it with prayer. I started to look at people’s high expectations of me as a sign that I am capable of doing good things, instead of seeing them as checklists to be completed."

Evangelista is a graduate of West Visayas State University. —Llanesca T. Panti/KBK, GMA News