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CAS Final Reflection

Throughout the 2 years of being in the IBDP, I have developed a lot of new skills and overcame a lot of weaknesses, mostly thanks to doing CAS. When I look back at myself two years ago, I am proud of my achievements and I acknowledge that being IB student played a big role in that.

About the time of starting IB, I got to know about such initiatives as European Youth Parliament or Model United Nations. As a major part of my Creativity, I was attending such sessions or taking part in other events related to my interests. My favorite organization that I got to know is EYP, which is composed of truly amazing people, who bring various perspectives and therefore enhance discussions both during committee work and free time during the event. I attended 4 EYP sessions – 3 as a delegate and 1 as a chairperson. The organization had a big impact on how I perceive the world and function in the group. Firstly, it made me more aware of different perspectives that people from different countries have. Secondly, it made me realize that in order to work efficiently with others, I have to listen actively and engage in discussion, which is only possible when I’m well prepared substantively. Moreover, thanks to EYP I have friends all around Europe (a thing that one can call a professional network). Finally, doing EYP was the most rewarding activity that I have undertaken, as it allowed me to develop the way in which I interact with others and helped me overcome a fear of public speaking. Time spent on these events helped me develop particular characteristics of IB learner: inquirer, knowledgeable, communicator, principled, open-minded.

 Moreover, for 20 months of doing IB, I was learning how to play guitar. The beginnings were tragic – my fingers hurt, the sound coming from the instrument was awful and I couldn’t see any progress. However, after weeks of regular practice sessions, I started playing some songs and solos. The best part about this activity is that I can express my emotions by playing different types of music in different keys. From songs that I learned my favorite ones are Smells Like a Teen Spirit by Nirvana and Boulevard of Broken Dreams by Green Day. The process of learning to play guitar made me more balanced and reflective.

 One of my activities was attending a gym. At the beginning, I was going there at least twice a week. However, with time, as the academic curriculum got more demanding and I had more extracurricular activities going on, my frequency dropped. Sometimes I was attending gym once in a month. During that time, I felt physically weak, I was more asleep and overall felt less happy. When I realized that keeping my body in a good form may play a crucial role in feeling well psychically and I began to work out regularly again, I felt a drastic improvement in how effectively I work and study. Thanks to that I know that work-life balance is crucial for me to feel fully accomplished and I know that I have to keep my body fit in college life.

 The other major activity that I was performing during last 20 months was playing in an amateur football league. I trained this discipline for 10 years in an academy and after changing school I felt some kind of void in my life. With a couple of friends, we decided to establish a team and sign up for a league. Even though the level was not high, I felt truly happy whenever I was on the pitch with my friends. Moreover, I got to truly enjoy the experience of having a ball at my feet, as when I was playing in professional leagues, the competitiveness was much higher and playing was more of a work than just fun. Activity part of CAS helped me become more balanced and risk-taking.

 For the last 2 years, I saw Service as a way of giving back to society. I volunteered on a couple of events, which made me more aware of issues of global importance that both local communities and whole nations face today. Moreover, I conducted a social initiative that was called Access Success. In a result of it, 2 people from my community went to Polish Economic Forum in London, one took a Spanish course and one went to a language camp in the UK – all funded by my initiative. This is what makes this initiative the one that I am most proud of – I had a tangible impact on someone’s life. I also established a local volunteering club “LEO”. To be honest, I didn’t manage to conduct as many initiatives as I wanted to. It is mainly because I started it during a very tough time when I had SAT exams and application to US universities, which takes a lot of time to finish. It taught me that I should be more reasonable with assessing ventures that I undertake. On the other hand, the club will still exist when I’m no longer in the school and I hope that younger classes will lead the club to do meaningful things for the community. Eventually, Service part made me more caring, principled and risk-taking.

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CAS Project reflection - Access Success

About a year ago I changed school after sustaining an injury from a sports one to the most competitive school in the region. My new schoolmates were totally different from the old ones: instead of struggling with alcoholism and abuse at home, they were winning national competitions and going to the best universities in the world. Seeing this social inequalities I decided to do something for my community. I gathered 4 schoolmates and we got to work. The idea of the project was to show young people from my community the paths of successful adults who grew up in similar neighbourhoods to ours and to show that it is possible to fulfil one’s dreams with hard work. After a few months of looking for speakers, conducting facebook, seeking sponsors and so on, we organised a conference that gathered above 450 young people from our community. I have also achieved my personal goal of making a tangible impact on someone’s life. I have used connections that I made for example during Polish Economic Forum with one of organisers. Not only he became a speaker on our meeting but also gave 2 tickets for our participants for the forum in London. I have also learnt a lot of things: patience, communication, entrepreneurship. But what was the most important for me was a fact that I have used a theory learned in classroom in real life actually. It was Herzberg’s theory of job enrichment about which I had learned on Business Management classes and I used it to resolve a crisis in my team. I think that was this breakthrough moment when I was sure that I want to study business related things in the college. Throughout the process of realisation of this project I developed a lot of skills. First of all I had undertaken a new challenge and worked with preservance and commitment to attain my goals. Moreover, conducting both our events and marketing campaigns in social media required a lot of planning and during that I learned how to work and communicate more effectively with others. Finally, during the conference I got to speak in front of a lot of people and thanks to that I overcame my fear of public speaking and developed that skill.

Learning outcomes:

Developing new skills

Undertaking new challenges

Planned and initiated activities

Working collaboratively with others

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Service on a farm in San Francisco

On April 20th I took a plane to the US for the first time in my life. My destination was San Francisco. I was going there to meet my future college classmates at an event called “Ascent”. During the event, I got a glimpse of what it means to be a “Minervan”. One day we went to a local farm in the suburbs of SF. Food sustainability is one of the main themes that local community of Bay Area is committed to and, as Minerva’s goal is to create socially responsible global citizens, we went to help farmers with their work. My task was to replant some seeds from small cups where they were initially sown to the soil. It was first such experience for me and I would like to volunteer on a local farm during my time in SF again.

Learning outcomes:

Engaged with issues of global importance

Developing new skills

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Road to Harvard live - Creativity/Service

One year ago I became a finalist of the “Road to Harvard” competition. It was one of the accomplishments that helped me to get into the college I wanted to. A couple of weeks ago I was asked to come to Warsaw for a Facebook live that the Harvard Club of Poland was organizing for people interested in the competition. It was held in Google campus in Warsaw on 10th of April. My task was to talk about my experiences with application process both for the competition and to US universities, about how scholarships from American institutions are awarded and how interviews from schools look like. Eventually, over 1000 people were watching us live (until now the video of the live was seen by 7000 Facebook users), which was a great experience that helped me develop my public speaking and performing skills. It was also the first time I took part in such a way of promoting an event and I see it as a good example for my future ventures. The video can be found under this address: https://web.facebook.com/DroganaHarvard/videos/10156501549643694/

Learning outcomes: 

Undertaking new challenges Developing new skills

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Finally the most pleasant week of entire year has come. For the whole previous week I had an enormous pleasure to spend time with friends and family in Passo Tonale snowboarding, sunbathing and partying. I love snowboarding and if I got a chance to choose my life path once again I would definitely strive to become a pro snowboarder. Having watched last X-Games I decided to give snowpark a shot this year. I started from really small boxes and kickers but after some successful jumps I decided to try more demanding ones. I think my longest fly this year was about 10 metres so I guess it’s not bad for the first time. The only trick I managed to learn was frontside 180. It may not be a difficult one, but I was really hyped after the first successful one. The only minus of that trip was my bruised tailbone. I would love to stay longer in Italy to snowboard, but still I had a great time and can’t complain at all.

Learning outcomes: Developing new skills Undertaking new challenges

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Tutoring a younger friend - Service

A friend of mine started her pre-IB year on September. Even though first weeks were hard for her, she is doing fine now and even became a chairperson of her class. There is however one thing that she struggles with, namely mathematics. As I’m on HL I proposed her additional lessons. I thought it’s going to be easy peasy lemon squeezy, but actually it’s hard hard lemon hard. It’s not a problem with her. Eventually, it’s not her fault that she does not initially understand some concepts, right? I think the problem lays within my impatience. I try to explain her some issues and she just needs some time, but I get nervous constantly. It’s better now than during our first lesson, but still I have to work on myself. At least I know my weaknesses, right?

Learning outcomes:

Increased awareness of strengths and areas for growth

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Organizing marathon of watching movies and writing letters for Amnesty International - Service

Recently I established a local charity club called “Leo Club Katowice Clout of Youth” with a couple of friends. At the beginning we weren’t able to organise anything, as 2 of us had SAT exams and the other one was committed to EYP. Finally, we managed to find some time and started thinking about what to do to help the ones in need. About the same time there was a week of writing letters in our school. We came up with the idea of organising a marathon of watching films with writing letters for Amnesty International. It was held in Wańkowicz High School on 1st December. As a result, people gathered wrote more than 50 letters. That was a great pleasure to see that our actions prompted others to do something meaningful.

Learning outcomes: Planned and initiated activities Engaged with issues of global importance

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Setting local charity club LEO and our first project - Service

Some time ago I was looking for charity organisations in which I could get involved. Unfortunately, most of them were not a perfect match for me. Either my schedule didn’t fit into theirs or I didn’t like their actions. At the same time, one of my friends proposed setting up our own charity club. After few weeks of work we gathered 15 people and started working. Our first initiative was helping in organisation of charity concert that took place in Music Academy. Members of our club were selling tickets for the event, putting up posters around the city and serving during the concert. Money collected in the event were passed on to Youth Symphony Orchestra from Katowice for their trip to Portugal for an international competition.

Learning outcomes: Planned and initiated activities Working collaboratively with others Undertaking new challenges

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Playarena - amateur football league - Activity (September-December 2017)

Even though I can’t play football professionally anymore, I still feel great passion for that discipline. Besides giving an opportunity to keep my body in a good shape, playing regularly enhances my communication with others and improves my leadership skills (I am a vice-captain of my current team). For previous months I was playing in the second league of Playarena Katowice. Players’ skills are much higher than that of players from the third league, in which we played until June. Hence,  I have to put much more effort to give value for my team so that we can keep on winning. On spring we want to fight for promotion to the first league. It will be hard, but let’s see what happens. Keep your fingers crossed!

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Chairing LIBE II Committee during 2017 Day of EYP Poland in Katowice - Creativity

Somewhere around September my friend approached me and offered me taking up a big venture. Unfortunately, due to my SAT exams, application to universities and the fact that I am in the last year of high school, I had to refuse. This initiative was organising 2017 Day of EYP Poland in Katowice.

Soon, I have seen a post on Facebook, saying that the call for officials is open. The session of EYP in Katowice one year ago was the first one in my life and since then I have totally changed, thanks to EYP among others. Bearing in mind, how much has the organisation contributed to me development, I decided to apply for a chairperson. Soon I got a call from Matthias Schwertner - the president of the session. “Welcome on the board” he said. I was both very astonished and excited. Preparations to the session started with me writing topic overview for my delegates, which actually was quite a good fun. My responsibilities during the session were to introduce delegates to the world of EYP by making them a team during teambuilding, helping them come up with resolution and supporting them during General Assembly.

On the 8th December Board of the session organised training for chairs. Throughout this day I’ve learnt soooooo much about creating a team spirit, managing people and how to deal with the ones that do not want to cooperate with the group politely, but firmly. The next day was the day of the session. I think I’ve slept something around 3 hours because I was planning all the games and activities for my delegates. In the very beginning, when we got to our committee’s room, I was very stressed. Thankfully, after a few get-to-know and ice-breaker games, when I saw my delegates standing on chairs, rolling over the floor and hugging one another, I regained self-confidence and enjoyed the day.

One day sessions of EYP are the most demanding ones. Due to very short period of time to conduct teambuilding, committee work and general assembly, we are all really short on time. Working under such pressure, however, helps you develop more.

In general, my first chairing experience was a great one. My delegates were really engaged in discussions, I had a big support from President and Vice-Presidents, fellow chairs were awesome people and I feel that I have done quite well.

Learning outcomes: Undertaking new challenges Working collaboratively with others Engaged with issues of global importance Developing new skills

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In the end of May I got selected as a Polish delegate for the 85th International Session of European Youth Parliament. From the day I got the email with acceptance to the morning of departure I was impatiently waiting for the conference. In my imagination, equivocal scenarios showed up. I was expecting to meet great people from all over the Europe, but at the same time I was anxious, that maybe my English is not good enough, I haven’t done research profound enough, or my debating skills are too low and I will not cope with my speech. Fortunately my apprehensions were strongly exaggerated and I had a great fun during the event. We arrived in Brno on the 21st of July with the rest of Polish delegation (including my classmate Zuza :)) and we spent the first day on exploring he city. After getting to accommodation, Zuza acquainted me to her friends from Slovenia, with whom we’ve spent a lot of time in the following days. The next day the teambuilding began and I got to know other members of my committee. They were great guys and we liked each other from the very beginning. One of the best things about EYP is that you get to work with people from different backgrounds, of different religions and with different worldview. You have to cooperate with them and therefore you learn to respect other cultures and people, while at the same time to appreciate your own origin. Besides the ineffable development of the social, soft skills, the session allowed me to experience an unforgettable academic journey. My committee was considered with the topic of world hunger - the one that seems not to have a viable solution - and still we had to come up with one as much comprehensive as possible. On one day we had a meeting with the Cypriot European comissioner, Christos Stylianides, who is considered with Humanitarian Aid and Civil Protection. He gave us a personal insight on some problems that we were dealing with during committee work, but also told some stories from visits in regions of the world, that are mostly affected with chronic hunger and famine. It was great pleasure to be able to ask him questions about the issues that were bothering us the most and discuss the possible solutions. There is a term in EYP jargon that perfectly expresses the feeling after such a great event as Brno 2017. It is PED - Post EYP Depression - which in fact is a big problem for all of EYPers. It is hard to understand for people who haven’t tried EYP before the bond that is created among the delegates during this few days at a session. The whole organisation feels like a big, European family and you really miss the people that you have met on the conference. Even now - after 6 weeks since leaving Brno - we chat with my committe members and remind ourselves the experiences of the session. To finish - I am ineffably enthusiastic about the EYP after Brno and the session and people that I have met have shaped me into a better citizen. I hope that my journey with the organization hasn’t ended yet and I will be able to experience its love and friendship in a very soon future. PS. Let the best confirmation of the uniqueness of EYP be the fact that on the closing ceremony one of the head organisers proposed to the second head organiser in front of about 300 people from all over the Europe. They’ve met on the EYP session a few years before. Above there is a picture of my Czech friend slavic squatting on me slavic squatting. The slavic-squat-inception.

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Summer activity - muscle up

Summer break is usually a period of serene laziness for students all over the world, but not for IB students. As risk-taking, open-minded, and balanced teenagers, we utilise this 2 months for travelling, meeting new people and looking for challenging passions. This holidays my hobby was street workout. There was a new outdoor gym build in my district just before the end of a school year and me and my friends were eagerly waiting to try it out. First workout was the worst one, as our muscles hurt for the next 3 days to such extent that we could barely move. Fortunately, we didn’t give up and motivated one another to train regularly. We tried a couple of exercises but none of us in the beginning was able to perform the one called “muscle up”. The muscle-up “begins with the arms extended above the head, gripping a hold in the overhand pull-up position. The body is then explosively pulled up by the arms, with greater speed than a regular pull-up. When the bar approaches the upper chest, the wrists are swiftly flexed to bring the forearms above the bar. The body is leaned forwards and the elbows are straightened by activating the triceps. The routine is considered complete when the bar is at the level of the waist and the arms are fully straight.” The first one to do it was my friend from the E class, which initially frustrated me, but eventually motivated to further, even harder, work. Soon I succeeded! All the trainings paid off and besides my physical strength that improved, I gained more self-confidence. Now I can honestly say, that the decision to start street workout was a great one!

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10th Congress of polish Student Societies in the UK On 25th January with a cluster of friends we arrived at the airport in Katowice looking forward to a great, unforgettable experience. We flew to Luton, took a bus and finally we got to London. 5 friends in an extremely big, chaotic and vibrant city. Limitless opportunities of places to go and things to do. For me it was the time I planned my whole stay in a foreign country completely without parents which ended up with lack of a plan of what we are going to do in London. Most of us had been in London before and had seen iconic monuments like Big Ben or Westminster, so we decided to chill and wander about the city like we were true citizens. On the following day we took a train to the real destination of our trip - Cambridge. We were about to participate in the 10th Congress of Polish Student Societies. Even though we are not students (1 year to go 🙏🏻), we decided that it will be a great experience. And in fact it was. During the conference, speakers like Radosław Sikorski or Mateusz Morawiecki raised very important issues about Polish business environment, economy and the position on international arena. However, the best experience was a ball, which took place in a 14th century mansion nearby Cambridge. I got to know some awesome people, which soon became my friends and was able to talk to some speakers in more a less formal environment. It was the first time I have taken part in such event and I really liked it. The conference made me think in a more complex way about some issues and was a big motivation for studying even harder to get to competitive universities and in future be part of such congress - this time as an organiser.

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KatMUN - service

KatMUN Service

I wrote about my participation in KatMUN in a previous post. This was a great fun, however, in order for the conference to happen, we had to put a lot of effort in organisation. In fact, I wasn’t a member of the secretariat, however as my friends were, I wanted to help. I was checking chairs’ applications. My task was to read them and based on a scheme, give them marks so that the secretariat can choose the best ones. I also encouraged some of my friends to take part in the session. All of them were finally satisfied with the event and all of the delegates’ places were fulfilled. The most exhausting thing was preparing a venue - Silesian Museum - for the conference. We had little time and a lot to do. It was very stressful but in the end, we managed to do that properly. After the conference, I helped with tidying the Museum and we could all celebrate the great, successful initiative together.

Learning outcomes: - engaged with issues of global importance - Working collaboratively with others

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KatMUN - creativity

This conference was a great experience, which I truly loved. I was assigned to the committee of UNICEF, where we were discussing the issue of child marriages. I had known a little bit about the problem before, but never truly considered it. It appeared tremendous to me, that in some part of the world, child marriages are common to such a scale. In my committee, I had a lot of first-timers in the committee to deal with, but fortunately, there were also some delegates, who knew, what MUNs are about. We all cooperated in order to find common ground and most suitable solutions possible. During the crisis, we had soooooo much fun. The problem concerned newly established country - San Escobar. This emerging economy, rich in resources was created by the polish politician - Witold “Waszczu” Waszczykowski. As I was the delegate of Russia (which is a P5 member), I had a lot to do and say during the crisis. I loved the whole event and I look forward to the session. Learning outcomes: - working collaboratively with others - engaged with issues of global importance

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After my first ever session of European Youth Parliament, which took place in Katowice in June 2016 I fell in love with this organization. I loved the opportunity to speak up, express your opinion, develop your social skills and meet amazing young people in a friendly atmosphere. With such a great attitude, the National Selection Conference of EYP Poland  in Toruń, which I attended few days ago simply couldn't go wrong. However, it did. The organization was awful, to such extent that the last day we couldn't even get plastic cups in order to get ourselves some tap water. The catering was disgusting, I didn't eat anything warm for 3 days. The organizers were disrespectful to delegates and didn't want to make friends with us. Finally - delegates. There were just 52 of them and most of them were first timers. Some of them were on a basic level of English, so the level of session was unfortunately low. Moreover I didn't feel this amazing atmosphere of EYP. To be honest I am strongly disappointed, however I still managed to learn something. As it was really hard to cooperate with some people in my committee (especially one sexist attention whore) I had to keep calm throughout the debate and my patience increased significantly. Moreover I feel that I learnt to look for advantages, no matter how bad the situation is. One night a great friend of mine put a costume of a plumber on and we were visiting strangers' rooms pretending that we are checking water meters. That's creativity, isn't it? I may not be content with the session in general, though such conferences always develop. Therefore I increased my public speaking, communication, teamwork and leadership - as all of my opinions were covered by our resolution. Learning outcomes: - Working collaboratively with others - Engaged with issues of global importance

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Service - teaching snowboarding Jack Ma once said “the key to success is to empower others” and in this manner I decided to share my passion to snowboard with my mother and cousin. I also wanted to repay my mum for ice-skating sessions. They both never had a snowboard on their legs, but were very curious about how it would be and asked me for, let’s say, lesson. They occurred to be very teachable students, however the beginnings were horrible. Firstly I walked down the whole ski run holding my cousin, so that she didn’t fall every 2 meters. My mum did a little bit better and she got through half of it on her own. After one day of struggling they could snowboard down the hill and my mother even managed to turn a few times. They were really exhausted after that, but I warned them that it will be like that. The beginnings are always difficult. Fortunately - and what’s the most important - they looked excited and said they liked it a lot. To attain full success in this area I have to encourage them to switch permanently to snowboard…