Final Reflection

In the two years of DP, I have had many unique experiences. I also learned a lot from these experiences. These CAS experiences expand my vision and give me much knowledge and experiences that the class cannot give me.

Identify your strengths and develop areas for growth

In these CAS experiences, I learned a lot of new things. In the past, I do not have much experience in leading a group or being part of the leading group of an organization. However, in the CAS experiences, I got more chances to be the leader of the group. These experiences trained my ability to communicate with each other. For example, in both of the club-related CAS experiences, I lead a group of other students. Students are extremely busy in DP. therefore I need to talk to them and adjust the distribution of the work to complete the task. I believe the ability to be a leader is the ability learned in these CAS experiences.

Demonstrate that challenges have been undertaken, developing new skills in the process

Most of my experience seems like a challenge to me. The Seussical involves drawing, The elementary school CAS needs us to play with kids, and the club CAS requires me to learn new skills and be a leading role in the group. All of these are things that I am not familiar with. However, these experiences gave me chances to practice these skills.

Demonstrate how to initiate and plan a CAS experience

In the process of these CAS experiences, there are a few steps. For example, in the Thailand service CAS, we first identify the need of the kids in Thailand. Then discuss with our teammate to find a solution that can help the kids in Thailand while staying in Taiwan because of the pandemic. In the process, we have to investigate and search for more information bout Thailand. To find their need. Then we discuss with our group to create a plan to produce a series of videos that can help kids in Thailand. I believe these CAS experiences trained my ability to work with other people and make plans.

Show commitment to and perseverance in CAS experiences

Most of my CAS experience is in long-term projects. The Thailand service CAS and the Seussical are experiences that are a few months long. These CAS require us to have a better plan to complete the project in time because a mistake in the early stage may delay the whole process. We also need to be more flexible than we need to quickly change the plan when we realize that the original plan does not work. I believe a long-term CAS experience is harder compared to a short-term one. They are more details in the project. We need a more complete plan to make the experience successful.

Demonstrate the skills and recognize the benefits of working collaboratively

All of my experience requires teamwork to a certain extent. Especially the longer and bigger project. For example the Seussical CAS. More people working together can increase efficiency significantly, and people can also provide more perspective to make the plan more complete. However, more people will also make people harder to collaborate. There are more opinions in the group, people need more time to coordinate with each other. Therefore working will more people need better communication skills to talk with members in the group to help each other working together. After the CAS experiences, I felt my communication has improved significantly because I was in a leadership role in some 0f my CAS experiences for example the Thailand service team. And I need to talk with the younger member to make them follow the instruction. It was a challenge for me. However, after the experience, I feel I improved a lot.

Demonstrate engagement with issues of global significance

The Thailand service team CAS is the CAS experience I had that related has the biggest connection with the global issues. Before the plan, we investigate them. Using the information online and the experience of older students. The kids we are helping are the kid who lost their parents or kids that do have parents by their side because their parent needs to work in the bigger city. We did a lot of research on this issue to help them however due to the pandemic we cannot visit there to directly help them like the older students. So, we change our plan and use another way to give them the things they need. We filmed a series of videos to teach them Chinese which is useful in their community. I believe the experience teach me more knowledge related to global issues.

Recognize and consider the ethics of choices and actions

My CAS experiences are also related to ethical issues. In the Thailand services team. I realize how our video may have a big impact on them. The Chinese we taught in the video and the values we want to teach them might help them in the future. The Chinese may help them to find a job, especially in the community they are living in that have a high percentage of the Chinese population. The values in the video may also give them a new perspective on their life. And helping them to become more objective and critical thinking. The effect of the video makes me realize the value of the video and encourage me to do more in the project.

Conclusion

The CAS experiences I experienced in the two years taught me a lot of things that I cannot learn in class. The experience of completing a project that helps people with my classmate is an experience I never experienced before. These experiences also teach me how to work will each other and teach me to complete a complex project.