Yasmien Kurdi Graduated Magna Cum Laude Through ETEEAP While Filming a TV Series

Learner Spotlight · Arellano University

Yasmien Kurdi

When Yasmien Kurdi marched across the stage at the Philippine International Convention Center on April 6, 2019, she was not just collecting a diploma. She was closing a chapter that had stretched across ten years, two universities, three courses, and countless sleepless nights on TV production sets. She graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science, magna cum laude, through the Expanded Tertiary Education Equivalency and Accreditation Program (ETEEAP) at Arellano University.

Her story is one of the most compelling examples of what ETEEAP was designed to make possible: a path to a recognized college degree that meets working Filipinos where they actually are.

What You Will Find in This Post

How Yasmien’s College Journey Started and Stalled

Yasmien’s road to a diploma was anything but straight. She first enrolled at New Era University in 2009, taking up Foreign Studies. She later transferred to Global City Innovative College, where she shifted courses again, this time to Nursing. Neither path led to a graduation stage.

Like many working Filipinos in entertainment and other demanding industries, the demands of her career made it nearly impossible to maintain the rigid schedule of traditional schooling. Shooting days stretched into evenings. Tapings ran through weekends. Academic calendars did not bend for call times.

For years, the degree remained unfinished. It is a situation that millions of Filipinos know well, not because of a lack of intelligence or ambition, but because the traditional educational system was simply not designed with their lives in mind.

Why She Chose ETEEAP at Arellano University

ETEEAP changed the equation. The program, which is now permanently institutionalized under Republic Act No. 12124, allows qualified working professionals to earn a CHED-recognized bachelor’s degree by having their work experience, training, and prior learning assessed and credited toward a degree program.

Yasmien enrolled at Arellano University under ETEEAP and pursued her third course, Bachelor of Arts in Political Science. The program did not ask her to pretend she was a fresh high school graduate with nothing but free time. It recognized that her years in the industry, her professional responsibilities, her decision-making, and her accumulated knowledge already carried academic weight. The job of ETEEAP was to measure that weight and assign it appropriate credit.

For candidates considering a similar path, ETEEAP.PH has a full breakdown of the qualifications and process, including the minimum age requirement of 23, the five-year work experience requirement, and the assessment methods used by deputized schools.

Studying Between Takes: The Thesis Defense That Almost Wasn’t

In February 2019, Yasmien was in the middle of production for her drama series “Hiram na Anak” when her thesis defense was scheduled. The two worlds collided without apology.

On February 12, the night before her defense, she posted photos on Instagram showing herself hunched over a laptop on the set in Pulilan, Bulacan, working through her thesis materials during a break from shooting. Her caption was equal parts exhausted and determined: she wrote about studying while at the set because thesis defense was in the morning, and asked her followers to pray for her group.

She passed.

On February 13, Yasmien and her group stood before their thesis panel and defended their work successfully. She shared the moment on Instagram, holding the thesis document in her hands alongside her group mates, with the simple words: “Finally! Maraming Salamat Ama. Thank you Arellano University.”

She announced her graduation date on the same day: April 6, at the PICC. The post was flooded with messages from fans who had watched her balance career and school for years.

Graduation Day: Magna Cum Laude at the PICC

On April 6, 2019, Yasmien Kurdi marched with the graduating class at the Philippine International Convention Center, ten years after she first stepped into a college classroom. She did not just finish. She graduated magna cum laude.

In her own words on Instagram, she wrote that she was beyond grateful and humbled, and that all the hard work in college had paid off. She dedicated the moment to working students everywhere, encouraging them to never stop reaching for their goals. She described life as hard but worth pushing forward through, and ended by thanking Arellano University and giving the glory to God.

Her message was not performative. It came from someone who had genuinely spent years navigating the space between a demanding career and an unfinished degree.

After graduation, she set her sights on graduate school, expressing interest in pursuing a master’s degree in either Consular Diplomacy or International Studies.

What Her Story Says About ETEEAP

Yasmien Kurdi is not a special case. She is an illustration of who ETEEAP was created for.

The program exists because the Philippine government recognized a fundamental truth: a person can be deeply competent, professionally accomplished, and genuinely educated without ever having sat through four years of traditional college instruction. ETEEAP does not lower the bar. It moves the assessment to where the actual competence lives, which is in the work itself.

Under Republic Act No. 12124, ETEEAP is now a permanent part of the Philippine higher education system. Qualified applicants must be at least 23 years old, hold a high school diploma or its equivalent, and have at least five years of work experience in the field related to their chosen degree. From there, a panel of internal and external assessors evaluates their portfolio, knowledge, and skills to determine how much credit to award.

The remaining gaps are filled through a competency enrichment program, which is how Yasmien ended up writing and defending a thesis. That thesis was not a formality. It was the same rigorous academic requirement any Political Science graduate would face.

She passed it in between shoot days. That is the ETEEAP experience in its most honest form.

If you are a working professional who has been putting off finishing your degree, Yasmien’s story is worth sitting with. The program she used is real, government-recognized, and accessible to Filipinos at home and abroad.

You can check if you qualify for ETEEAP, browse accredited schools in your region, or explore available degree programs to find one that matches your career and experience. If you are ready to take the first step, visit the Get Started guide at ETEEAP.PH.

Your years of work already count for something. ETEEAP is how you make them count on paper.

Photo credit: https://www.instagram.com/yasmien_kurdi