and this is my IB CAS blog. I'm an IB year 2 student at QSI Bratislava.
Here, I post the activities that I do which count as CAS hours towards completing my IB diploma.
Final Reflection
April 20, 2017
At first, I thought that completing CAS would be very challenging for me, as I realized I had to fit different activities, some that lasted for a long period of time, within my everyday life. Although in the beginning, it was hard to fit everything into my schedule, I became much better at organizing my time. I am glad I have had the opportunity to engage in CAS as the various activities I participated in have helped me grow as not only a student but a person. Due to CAS, I was also introduced to new activities I was not involved in prior (for example: face painting, baking, raising money for charity,..) which has been beneficial for my overall growth.
The CAS experience has also helped me become aware of my strengths and weakness in various ways. Due to some of the activities, I was able to improve my physical health by consistently keeping up with going to the gym as well as doing yoga, as well as increase my interest of designing creative posters and organizing events, which are activities I want to pursue even after CAS is done.
Due to CAS, I have learned how to push my limits, for example, when I took on the extra workload of starting to take French classes three times a week, which helped improve my French as well as pushed me to go to a summer camp in France. I am very happy with the decision, as it was the reason for my new appreciation for the French culture as well as language. Pushing my limits was not always easy for me, but I am glad I have consistently tried to do it, even in my personal life. For example, I am glad I decided to pursue freeride skiing during February break. I have been scared to do it for a long time, however, I saw it as a CAS opportunity, which gave me the last push I needed to try it out. With the help of the CAS programme, I became more interested in pursuing activities that I would normally not have done, which is something I am planning on continuing with.
I feel that I have best addressed the outcomes of working collaboratively with others and undertaking new challenges. Through the CAS activities I have done, I often worked with people and had a united goal in mind (HOUSE, event planning, food drive), which further enhanced my understanding of the importance of teamwork. Also, I would have not applied for an internship at an investment company were it not for seeing it as a CAS opportunity, but it is the activity I have enjoyed the most. Not only working with new people, I also saw the IB Economics theories I have learned applied in real life.
There were; however, some challenges along the way. Although I had planned to continue with my internship when the school year began, I was not able to continue due to an overload of other commitments and my desire to cover all of the CAS learning outcomes. With other activities, I was usually able to achieve my goals, but sometimes I found it challenging. For example, I had planned on doing more as member of the 2018 HOUSE, however, due to poor time management and the overall lack of coordination of house leaders (including me) we struggled at the beginning. However, being split into random groups of people helped me create new friendships and an appreciation of the student body as a whole.
Overall, I perceive CAS as a positive experience I had during my two years in the IB programme. I am happy CAS is ending, as the reflections were not my favorite activity to do, but I realize that through CAS, I was able to not only focus on my studies and academic, but also challenge myself through new activities. I found the activities that I enjoyed and will continue pursuing, but also increased my skill in activities I will not necessarily seek to repeat (face painting). If I were to repeat the CAS programme, I would definitely focus more on the HOUSE projects, as they bring about substantial engagement with issues of global importance (sometimes) on a local scale.
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