Intro for CAS goals:

For CAS, as part of the IB course requirements, we are required to have a CAS goals that we intend to achieve throughout that specific school year (DP 1 or DP 2). These goals need to be challenging to some extent and they need to be relevant to Creativity, Activity, and Service. The structure that these goals follow is the SMART structure:

S – Specific

M – Measurable

A – Attainable

R – Relevant

T – Time

Creativity:

My goal is to complete the CS50 web programming with python and javascript provided by Harvard’s online courses and to obtain the credits offered upon completion of the course.

Coding is something I have always wanted to pursue since quite a young age. At first it started off by wanting to be able to code a game on an online game platform called “Roblox”, however I was quick to give up. Jumping up to 7th grade, I started my first computer science course and I became interested in coding again. Finally, recently my brother has been urging me to pursue at least one coding language because of the degree that I want to go into. I wanted to follow my brother’s footsteps, hence I too wanted to pursue electrical engineering, and after his own experiences he explained to me how knowing a coding language will help me obtain internships.

The details of the course are below: The Course is here

  • 12 weeks long
  • 6-9 hours per week
  • Intermediate difficulty 
  • Course sponsored by EDX
  • Topics Learned:
    • Git
    • HTML, CSS
    • Flask
    • SQL
    • APIs
    • Java Script

Activity:

My goal for activity for this year is to continue SAISA volleyball and try out SAISA badminton again. SAISA volleyball was an extremely useful and enjoyable experience last year. I learned a lot about the sport and gained valuable skills such as teamwork, time management, and discipline. One of my specific goals for SAISA volleyball is to continue going to the morning practices like last year. Previously the morning practices were only attended by Ben, Sam, and I. I would like that to be the same during DP1 in order to show my dedication to the sport. For SAISA badminton my goal is to get into the team and travel to participate in the tournament. Last year it was unclear whether I would be in the team or not due to the COVID situation, hence I would like to pick up where I left off. Another goal I have for SAISA badminton is to improve my in-game performance under pressure. Something I have noticed for the past two years is that I play well during practice but when we are trying out for the team, my performance drops severely. I think this is an underlying issue in my in-game mentality and I would like to improve this.

Service:

My goal for service this year is to continue working at checkmates and help my service leaders organize more events or help run the service more efficiently under this stressful time. My personal goal is to build a deeper connection with the local Sri Lankan students and to overcome the language barrier that is present between us. I want to be able to learn more about their culture and understand them generally on a deeper level. I think side goals I could have is to somehow record this service goal by adding milestones for the progress of the local students that come in and see if they are meeting them throughout the year. I can during the Food and Fun Fair event (if it happens) we can raise a fundraiser to try selling a product in order to fund money to buy new chess equipment. A lot of our chess boards are completely different, some are broken, and some chess pieces are either broken or missing. Hence supplying the local  students with better equipment would be a nice goal.