During this fantastic grade 9 years, I have worked hard to try to achieve the united world college skills and qualities, I went into my last 4 years in UWC’s high school with an open mind for collaborating and communicating with my peers and mentors during school subjects and extracurricular activities. I had a brilliant start to the grade 9 year looking for new opportunities to learn skills and qualities, I also looked forward to pursuing subjects that I felt matched my values and beliefs such as, Mandarin, Enterprise, DT resistant and materials, and global perspectives, I chose these subjects as I felt that these subjects paired nicely with my culture and my personality. Throughout this year I’ve had the pleasure of making new friends and learning with them alongside my teachers, which have taught me valuable lessons on being respectful, responsible, focused and being a better version of myself. I continue to use these skills and qualities in school while partaking in academic studies, school expedition and even when I am around my friends. This year I took part in my school expedition (tall ship sailing in Australia Leeuwin) which really showed my skills and qualities to its fullest.
During my grade 9 experience I’ve have many academic challenges, This year I’ve had to struggle through 8 subjects. Some of the challenges I’ve had to face was science and enterprise, these 2 subjects were academically challenging as I had to learn completely new material. During science I really struggled with learning 11 different units in a year as there is so much information to take in, this is a hard task as it requires qualities and skills to study and learn these units. I especially had a hard time during the exams when I had to study for the 11 units for science, I used my qualities and skills to help me focus and persevere through hard times so I would be ready and confident for my exams.
Towards the beginning of the year I participated in the dragons swimming team, During mid December I went to Bangkok to participate in a swimming competition called feeding frenzy, I have attended this competition for the last 7 years and this is where I learned valuable skills such as team spirit, During the meet I swam with swimmers new and old to achieve a single goal, Throughout my 7 years of attending this meet this is where I really learned the meaning of teamwork, where I help my team push themselves to further limits, swimming has helped me throughout the years with small and big things, because of swimming , I was able to learn valuable skills like being able to manage my time. As a swimmer, you are required to swim 6-9 times a week, over the past couple of years I’ve had to manage my time between academics, swimming and my social life which was exceedingly hard. A couple of years back I was even doing gymnastics where I had to do 4 sessions which made life even harder. This year I’ve decided to take a break from sports, taking a break from sports will help me recuperate and help me understand what I am without sports, so when I eventually get back to sports I will have a better state of mind for my attitude for swimming.
This grade 9 years I took part in a once in a lifetime experience expedition, I felt that the tall ship sailing matched my personalities very well, During this trip, I had to use skills and qualities such as being a risk taker, being resilient, being responsible and respectful, etc. During this trip I was forced into uncomfortable situations like making new friends from dover and living in a new environment, this pushed me out of my comfort zone and helped me interact and see things in a new light. During this trip a major thing that pushed me out of my comfort zone was climbing, this was pushed me well out of my comfort zone as I was frightened of heights and we were forced to climb up to achieve a goal to set sail. This really brought out the qualities of being a risk taker as I was not the keenest to climb up.
In conclusion, I felt that so far my grade 9 experience has been hard yet exhilarating, I have learned new skills and qualities this year that I thought I would never achieve, I have reached new limits and I am looking to reach further in service, academics, and extracurricular activities. This year I have faced countless challenges that I hope will push me to be a better person with more skills and better qualities. This grade 9 year has been superb and I am looking forward to the future where I can see myself doing great things.
-Justin
