Over the last two years of my CAS journey, I have participated in many activity, creativity, and service ventures both in and outside of school. These experiences have allowed me to develop and perfect skills and abilities that will help me in the future. Throughout the first year, I focused more on the activity aspect of CAS by doing as much exercise as possible. However, during the second year, while I still did activities through SAISA for example, my journey was more concentrated on service and creativity as I had to take a bigger role in my service group as a service leader. By exploring the different aspects of CAS I managed to identify, demonstrate, and recognize vital skills that I can again use throughout my life.

1. Identify your own strengths and develop areas for personal growth.

During my CAS experiences, I identified strengths and developed certain areas which I felt I had to improve upon. For instance, reflecting back on my posts, I can see that I am very enthusiastic and energetic when it comes to sports. On the other hand, in the first year, I realized that I was not focusing enough on the service and creative aspects. Thus I chose to take a more active role in my service group by attending weekly meetings and being a part of the school’s success in acquiring the green flag. Identifying this strength and area for personal growth has allowed me to realize that I must make a greater effort in getting out of my comfort zone and try new things that I may not personally like or find appealing.

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

Certain experiences in school have allowed me to develop new skills, more specifically the ability to be more vocal and confident in front of an audience. This is shown when trying to acquire the green flag for OSC as I had to present to representatives and share the process of making the school more sustainable. Another experience that allowed me to develop this skill is the mother tongue assembly as I had to be an MC and read a poem to the entirety of the school.

3. Demonstrate how to initiate and plan a CAS experience.

My CAS project is a great example to display how my journey reflects me initiating and planning experiences as I had to take a leadership role and help direct the Home Run event. On top of that, I and a few other individuals had to plan together in order to help initiate the event amongst our service group and to make sure that it was successful. In addition, the majority of the activity experiences were initiated by friends and I outside of school in order to get some exercise.

4. Show commitment to and perseverance in CAS experiences.

Obtaining the green flag took a lot of commitment and perseverance as we had to constantly meet during lunch periods in order to plan and create a presentation for the representatives. As well as that, some of us had to take part in a two-hour meeting to persuade the representatives that our school was sustainable and thriving to become even more environmentally friendly. Moreover, as a team, we also had to show a lot of commitment to training sessions during SAISA volleyball in order to become the champions.

5. Demonstrate the skills and recognize the benefits of working collaboratively.

Throughout the majority of my CAS experience, I have had the opportunity to work collaboratively with others such as my service group, members of other services, teachers, teammates, and friends to build new experiences and overcome challenges. This can be seen with the volleyball team where we managed to work as a team and as one to win, and with our service group, H&H, to organize fundraisers to help others as well as building garden beds to make our school more sustainable.

Without a doubt, the entirety of my CAS experience has given me the opportunity to explore new perspectives and aspects of life while learning and recognizing key elements and skills that I will be able to use.