In the first semester of DP1, I was a nervous, prone-to-overthinking student who was consistently behind on their CAS blog. In the last semester of DP2, I’m a less nervous, more confident student who- is still consistently behind on their CAS blog.
BUT- I’ve grown so much as a person over the last two years and I’ve done things I really never thought I could.
I’m very socially anxious but I still managed to do an entire presentation in front of a small crowd. I’m terrified of heights but I still managed to hike up very high (in my opinion)!
When I began the IB diploma programme in 2022, I had three main goals
- To embrace my Creativity and write an article for the Advocate
- To be more Active
- To perform Service
They were my very first CAS goals and it seems like so long ago when I first typed it into my CAS blog even though really it was only 2 years ago.
The three main things I’ve developed through those two years are self-awareness, collaboration and perspective-taking.
In my experience in the past two years, I’ve found that these three things usually go together. You can’t really develop your self-awareness without considering how you fit in the larger whole (collaboration) or how you present to others (perspective-taking). Every time that I’ve pushed myself beyond my comfort zone to do things I normally wouldn’t, I’ve developed each of those things. For example, going on field trips even when I really didn’t feel like it made me become more aware of my individual strengths and weaknesses but also made me realize how they can be used in a a greater combination of everyone else’s strengths and weaknesses in a team – this taught me the value of collaboration. Eventually when conflicts arose, I also learned and developed my ability to shift and switch perspectives to approach problems in new ways