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Introduction
Over two years of DP courses, despite focusing on the heavy school work, we also need to spend additional time on creativity, activity, and service experiences. I used to feel that it will be an additional burden for me, but after I spend the time with my friends and classmate trying out different events, this actually brought me lots of special and interesting experiences. I would never have the chance to experience some of the events if the only things I can do during DP are IA, EA, TOK and EE.
Learning outcome 1: Identify own strengths and develop areas for growth
I have achieved this outcome to some extent. I'm always quite aware of my weaknesses and strength. I knew that art is not my thing, so I rarely participate in events that involve art skills. However, some of my CAS experience did require me to improve my art skills in order to accomplish the goal. For instance, the Seussical crew I joined needed us to help to draw and create the props. Therefore, I admit my weaknesses and learned from other crews about how to make it looks nicer. Surprisingly, I found out that I also have the ability to draw beautiful things and it's so satisfying! This experience brought growth in my art skills, and I also found out it's possible to make weakness into a strength!
Learning outcome 2: Demonstrate that challenges have been undertaken, developing new skills in the process
To some extent, I have achieved this outcome. As this project allows us to accomplish creativity, activity, and service aspect, I became willing to challenge the areas and new skills that I used to try to avoid. For example, I used to be very lazy about doing exercise. However, now I climb mountains with my friends and found out how satisfied it will be to finally arrive at the destination. Every time we climb, we try to change the pace and challenge ourselves. I'm still quite aware of my weaknesses that I didn't exercise a lot so it will take more time for me to improve. However, I also found my strength that I persevere to achieve the goal, so this encourages me to keep climbing the mountain without hesitation.
Learning outcome 3: Demonstrate how to initiate and plan a CAS experience
To a great extent, I achieve this outcome. Since some of my CAS experience involves holding an activity, this really practices my planning skills a lot and helps me to learn from the previous failure. For example, with the student council member, we plan the Master Chef, the very first cooking competition in Kuei Shan. This allows us to develop our creativity since it never happened before. To hold a competition really need great planning skills since we need to plan the schedule, equipment, advertisement, etc. As this is the first time for us to all plan an event by ourselves, we procrastinate and wait for the last minute to plan out all things. Therefore, we reflect on our preparation skills together and discuss how can we improve them. We found out that one of our problems is that we always need to wait for someone else to respond so that we can move on to the next part. The better way to approach this is to communicate with all the related members or teachers at the very first stage so that we can firmly plan out the rest of the things.
Learning outcome 4: Show commitment to and perseverance in CAS experiences
I achieve this outcome to some extent. This is mostly because of the student council so that I demonstrate regular involvement in the CAS experience. Throughout the whole year, we initiate different plans for different events and start to be aware of the potential challenge we might face, for example, the student council election. This is the last event we hold, and we started to be aware of the need to plan how to deal with the online election. And this really happens because of coronavirus. We also try to communicate with the next possible student council member, so that this is not just a long-term CAS experience for us, but also for the next student council. This is the way we show our perseverance in the CAS experience.
Learning outcome 5: Demonstrate the skills and recognize the benefits of working collaboratively
To great extent, I achieve this outcome. As most of my CAS experience involves the ability to work with others, I learned a lot about how to collaborate with different kinds of people. For example, I cooperate with student council members and scout club members to make our charity stall. In order to sell different kinds of foods at the same time, this really requires us to collaborate and identify who is going to be responsible for what. We suddenly became very busy when there are so many people who wanted to buy our food, therefore, some of us need to receive money from the customer, and others need to help to prepare the drinks and food for them. In fact, while we started to prepare the food, it spends more time than we expect since there are so many different ideas in our groups. Everyone has different ideas of which foods will be the best. At last, we learn how to respect others' ideas and objectively analyze who's idea is the best. Collaborating with different kinds of people is never easy, but every time we cooperate and build these kinds of memories, we learn how to respect others and work together to achieve our goals.
Learning outcome 6: Demonstrate engagement with issues of global significance
I only achieve this outcome in little extent. I address global engagement during the Marathon national competition, it's quite cool to involve in the national community and see all of the people in my country participate in such a big event. Running competition in Taiwan had also attracted international awareness about the importance of the community being aware of their health condition. In current circumstances, we started to learn a lot about technologies and the convenience they brought, but never realize how important it is to keep our body healthy by doing exercise. During this competition, although I'm only one of the volunteers, I can see different kinds of people challenge themselves and participate in this event. I also heard some of the stories that they have a busy life but still challenge themselves and sign up for this event. People have been encouraged by the community. However, since I had no chance to contribute to global issues during all of my CAS experience, so I can do better on this learning outcome.
Learning outcome 7: Recognize and consider the ethics of choices and actions
By holding some of the events, it's necessary to consider the ethics of choices and actions. Therefore, I have achieved this outcome to some extent. For example, when student council members and I were holding the volleyball competition, we face a lot of challenges to force us to do ethical decisions. While we wanted to achieve our original intention, which is to make everyone participate in this competition, we didn't fully follow the rules that we originally stated to all of the participants. Therefore, the consequence becomes very hard to solve. This gave us a lesson to know how important it is to make sure that our every decision is ethical and some of the choices we make will even lead to consequences that we don't expect to face.
Conclusion
Overall, although CAS experience won't bring direct impacts to us just as the major subject, as I reflect on what I experienced in these two years, it's a surprise to see how much I grow because of these experiences. I have chances to learn my strengths and weaknesses, I also have chances to develop my new skills. I learn to cooperate with others and make careful decisions. These experiences and learning will be my gifts to my future and I can utilize these skills and experiences one day if I have challenges need to overcome.
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