CAS
Creativity, Activity, and Service:
Do not make your goal to be the best. Best is a label. It's something someone else decides for you. 'Better' is more personal.
CAS Course Description
CAS—Creativity, Activity, and Service—takes seriously the importance of life outside the world of scholarship, providing a counterbalance to the academic absorption some students may feel within a demanding school curriculum. The creative, physical, and social development of human beings can be shaped by their own experiences. Participation in CAS encourages students to share their energies and special talents while developing awareness, concern and the ability to work cooperatively with others. The IB goal of educating the whole person comes alive in an immediate way when students reach beyond themselves and their books.
CAS should extend you. It should challenge you to develop a spirit of open-mindedness, lifelong learning, discovery, and self-reliance. It should encourage the development of new skills on many levels: for example, creative skills, physical skills, and social skills. It should inspire a sense of responsibility towards all members of the community. It should also encourage the development of attitudes and traits that will be respected by others, such as determination and commitment, initiative, and empathy.
What is CAS?
Creativity is exploring and extending ideas, leading to an original or interpretive product or performance.
Music, theatre, film, design technology, visual arts, dance, fashion and other experiences that involve creative thinking fall under creativity (for example, joining a choir or engaging with fashion design).
Activity is physical exertion contributing to a healthy lifestyle.
Taking on a new sport or extending your ability (for example, with football, yoga, dance, aerobics classes, biking or hiking), counts as activity.
Service is collaborative and reciprocal community engagement in response to an authentic need.
By investigating and identifying a community need, then determining a plan of action that respects the rights, dignity and autonomy of all involved (for example, reading to the aged or advocating for a cause), you are performing service.