The Pontifical and Royal University of Santo Tomas, The Catholic University of the Philippines, or simply the University of Santo Tomas (UST), is a private, Roman Catholic research university in Manila, Philippines. It was the home university of the famous personnels such as Dr. Jose Rizal, our National Hero, Apolinario Mabini, and produced 4 Presidents of the Philippines and 3 Philippine Vice Presidents. UST was founded on April 28, 1611 by Miguel de Benavides , Archbishop of Manila, it has the oldest extant university charter in the Philippines and in Asia, and is one of the world’s largest Catholic universities in terms of enrollment found on one campus. The university is run by the Order of Preachers. UST is the only university to have been visited by three popes four times: once by Pope Paul VI on November 28, 1970, twice by Pope John Paul II on February 18, 1981 and January 13, 1995, and once by Pope Francis on  January 18, 2015. The patron of the university is St. Thomas Aquinas , while St. Catherine of Alexandria is the patroness.

The UST Manila campus was declared a National Historical Landmark by the National Historical Commission of the Philippines on 24 May 2011. It has also started to develop upcoming campuses in Santa Rosa City , General Santos City , and Negombo, Sri Lanka.

The University is considered by the Philippines Commission on Higher Education (CHED) as one of the top universities in the Philippines together with University of the Philippines (UP),Ateneo de Manila University (ADMU) and De La Salle University (DLSU) known as The Big Four. Also UST is the first and only university in the country to be recognized by the Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) University Rankings with four stars for excellence (five as the highest) as an institution and five stars in the areas of employability, facilities, social responsibility and inclusiveness. It has been ranked in the QS Asian University Rankings (145), QS World University Rankings (801+) and QS Graduate Employability Rankings.

The university is also known for having a big population of students ranging from 42,000 – 45,000 students every school year. The question is why is UST gaining a lot of popularity from their potential students? It is because University of Sto. Tomas graduates consistently dominate the top ten in courses with board exams (Medicine, Nursing, Pharmacy, Occupational Therapy, Physical Therapy, Engineering, Architecture, Accountancy, Education, etc.) which proves the University’s superior academic programs.  But despite of their academic excellence, the University serves fun for the students with the most awaited “UST Paskuhan” wherein wide Christmas activities are held inside the campus. The annual tradition started since 1991 and the programs are held during the last week or last day before the Christmas break of the university.

This is an example post, originally published as part of Blogging University. Enroll in one of our ten programs, and start your blog right.

You’re going to publish a post today. Don’t worry about how your blog looks. Don’t worry if you haven’t given it a name yet, or you’re feeling overwhelmed. Just click the “New Post” button, and tell us why you’re here.

Why do this?

• Because it gives new readers context. What are you about? Why should they read your blog?
• Because it will help you focus you own ideas about your blog and what you’d like to do with it.

The post can be short or long, a personal intro to your life or a bloggy mission statement, a manifesto for the future or a simple outline of your the types of things you hope to publish.

To help you get started, here are a few questions:

• Why are you blogging publicly, rather than keeping a personal journal?
• What topics do you think you’ll write about?
• Who would you love to connect with via your blog?
• If you blog successfully throughout the next year, what would you hope to have accomplished?

You’re not locked into any of this; one of the wonderful things about blogs is how they constantly evolve as we learn, grow, and interact with one another — but it’s good to know where and why you started, and articulating your goals may just give you a few other post ideas.

Can’t think how to get started? Just write the first thing that pops into your head. Anne Lamott, author of a book on writing we love, says that you need to give yourself permission to write a “crappy first draft”. Anne makes a great point — just start writing, and worry about editing it later.

When you’re ready to publish, give your post three to five tags that describe your blog’s focus — writing, photography, fiction, parenting, food, cars, movies, sports, whatever. These tags will help others who care about your topics find you in the Reader. Make sure one of the tags is “zerotohero,” so other new bloggers can find you, too.