FINAL
CAS REFLECTION
During these two years of IB, doing CAS really benefited
me in several ways.
-CAS helped me achieve all 8 of the learning outcomes
and to realize that learning is much more than just textbooks. I learned to
relax from academics and appreciate other aspects of life in which other people
with whom I may or may not have too much in common with participate in. Many of
my service activities also made me be more grateful of what I have because it
made me realize the struggles others go through. This inspires me to work
harder, because I now realize that I am extremely lucky and it would be
wasteful not to take advantage of the opportunities life gives me.
-I mostly enjoyed challenging myself and doing things
I never would have expected myself to do. An example of this was my ballet
recital. I stopped taking ballet classes years ago and it was one of the most
heartbreaking decisions I ever had to make because I thought that I would never
step back on a stage again. When you stop doing ballet at the age of 12, this
is what you are always told, and I had accepted it. When I took up ballet again
now, I was aware that I would never be at the level I had been at before so I
went merely to enjoy dancing again. It was to my surprise that I was asked to
participate in the dance school’s end of year performance. Out of nowhere, I
had the guts to accept and there I was, every Saturday from January to June at
the rehearsals. Some of these were better than others but before I knew it, I
was on the stage again, extremely scared thinking I was going to faint but
nonetheless there, giving it my all. Not only did I perform the dance “Argitasunerantz”
once, but twice because we went and re-did it in another theater a week later. This
taught me to never assume something is over or that it is the last time for
anything because there is always a second chance, opportunity, even when you
least expect it.
-Another part of CAS that I really enjoyed was the
sense of belonging I got from the different communities I joined by doing the
activities. With Flute I got to know people in the music world, in ballet
people passionate about dance and the people at the surf school have become a
sort of second family to me now.
-What I least enjoyed was writing as many reflections
as were required. There were some activities such as surf, which I feel that I
did have something new to say quite frequently because each surfing experience
is different (the waves are different meaning that the techniques you practice
vary) and therefore I did have a lot to reflect on. Other activities however
such as Flute or Ballet, I found that doing them was extremely benefiting to me
as they strongly contributed to my holistic learning process but that writing
so many reflections ended up taking more time than the actual activity, because
there was not too much to say each time the activity was carried out because it
takes a long time to develop skills in these activities. I think that CAS would
be a much more enriching experience if less paperwork was needed because this
way, something that should be about relaxing and forgetting about academics
ends up being one more homework assignment to deal with because of the
reflections.
-If I were to do something
different it would probably have been to promote my activities a bit more. By
this I mean that some of the things, especially the service activities are good
for society in general but that many of these actions go unseen. Until I did
CAS, I knew about the food bank but I never knew how people got involved in it
or what it really consisted in. I think that getting people from school, even
those who are not yet IB students and do not have to do CAS as a requirement,
to participate in these kinds of activities would be great. I think that I
should have promoted and let not only other CAS students know about activities,
but as many ASB students as possible.
