UWC ISAK Japan Open Campus Day

Post date: Sep 25, 2017 2:37:50 AM

I cannot explain the feeling of anxiety and nervousness that I had upon learning that my new CAS group, Project Karuiku, was already hitting the ground running by organizing two workshops during our school's first open campus day which occurred on the 9th of September. I was still a new member at the time, and despite the fact that I was already passionate and motivated to drive change, I still felt some shock when I heard that the new members were also expected to help in the organizing of the workshop, and also take leadership roles during it.

Looking back, I can confidently say that those two workshops had a significant impact on me both as a Karuiku member and as a student of UWC ISAK Japan.

Planning this workshop event marked the beginning of my Karuiku learning experience. I have to admit that my seniors really did most of the work required for planning, but I also contributed to the process. Planning a workshop is not an easy process as not only are we required to agree with the timing and venue logistics with the school, in this case, but we are also expected to actually lead the event and make sure that the participants receive the best possible experience. For example, I remember an instance in the workshop when I saw that one of the participants, a Japanese boy, was feeling disappointed and shy that he let his team down by walking into the wrong direction in a landmine game. I immediately felt a sense of obligation that I had to do something that would first of all take away the boy's disappointment, and also maybe draw a smile on his face. I simply just participated and failed miserably in this landmine game. This made the whole group laugh at me, but most importantly made them understand that a person cannot simply succeed in the game without failing a few times. I still remember, and will never forget that the same boy who was disappointed at the beginning ended up finishing first in the group. I simply felt that I did the right thing at that instance and words cannot describe how happy I was when I found out that the boy finished first. This was simply improvised as I couldn't have, in any way, known that I would experience such thing during the workshop.

The other learning experience that I gained during the workshop was the development of my collaboration skills. People have to work together in life to achieve their goals and the more a person practices working with others, the more prepared they will be for the future stages in life. I previously found difficulty in accepting ideas from other group members that seemed to be illogical from my perspective, but I believe that this is all a part of the learning experience. The idea of working with others may be intimidating, but trust me when I say that collaboration is a life skill that one must develop. I also want to add that working with others allows for more creativity and open mindedness. I tend to be an innovative thinker and I use my ability to innovate and find solutions to benefit my CAS group. Another person might be a good public speaker, which may not necessarily be my strongest area and I feel like having other people with unique and different areas of strength is the key to success.

Those are just a few of many examples of learning experiences that have had a positive impact on me. Obviously I cannot list everything, but I just want to say that a person has to be passionate towards the CAS group they choose, and this has definitely been the case for me. I am motivated and happy to have others that share similar feelings as me and even though my seniors have been quite successful so far with this project, I personally want to take it to the next level and further establish it by hosting workshops in Japan that are outside of Karuizawa.