Grade 9 is about to come to end and I wanted to write a reflection that I can look back upon to measure my growth in my goals. I started off grade 9 a little uncertain about what I was passionate about and what I exactly wanted to pursue. But throughout the year I’ve taken a big step forward and I’ve pushed myself to try out a lot of new activities. Some of which I plan to participate in for the coming years. For example Track and Tech Tinkers. Both were activities I’ve never done before but after a few months of doing them, I knew I wanted to do more next year. Sorting through all my passions for guitar, drama, DT and even English has been difficult and while I would be content pursuing all of them, I know that specializing in one is what I really want to do. That is why I intend to use my summer in Singapore (due to COVID-19) learning how to code because while making apps and sites has been something I’ve thought would be a useful skill, I’ve never gotten around to sticking with one programming language (in this case Java). While I will be focusing on several things not related to academics such as cooking more, playing tennis (if the courts open), and building my overall fitness. I will also be working on being more prepared for the content I will encounter in subjects like Math, Science, and English. I even intend to start speaking with my brother in Spanish in order to maintain the fluency I’ve been working hard on. Right now I have a lot of goals and I just want to make sure that in the future I’m able to complete them.
My Personal Statement
If you asked me two years ago, I would say trying out new things was not my strong suit, whether it was some random food, or an extracurricular activity. I just didn’t feel comfortable doing it. This changed when in grade 7 I decided to try out for the Tennis team. At the end of the year I realised it really wasn’t that bad and I actually ended up making some good friends in addition to becoming more proficient in a sport I liked. So the next year I tried out for the team again despite my broken wrist and I even took a further step and tried out for the MS Production. Drama wasn’t a subject I had been getting amazing grades in, but there was a part of me that wanted to experience what it was like to be a part of the production. I was lucky enough to get a role that I really enjoyed playing and in addition to helping me make friends across grades, it got me interested in developing my skills in that area. So this year I tried out again, and in addition I signed up for the Design and Innovate activity, Preseason softball, The Track Team, ITP Guitar and a couple of other activities. I found that while at first I may not have enjoyed the experience of trying out the unknown, I’ve learned to make the most of all the opportunities I have. Yes, in the end not all of the activities I participated in were entirely for me, but in truth the majority were and it’s given me a better idea of what things I’d like to do now, and some ideas for the future. While at first it may seem like a strength, it’s also proved to be a weakness. Since I’ve participated in quite a few different activities and services it makes it difficult to find the one passion, and actually commit to it. I find that this year I was juggling between my interests in Tennis, Guitar, Drama, and DT. It took quite a while to make a decision on what I wanted to focus on but in the end I chose DT.
Ever since I was introduced to the idea of being able to design and even build a product, I’ve been thinking of Engineering as a prospective future career. Living in India, I enjoyed going to school but one of the few things my school lacked was any sort of real introduction to hands-on labs. When I moved to Singapore I took advantage of my access to the Design and Technology lab and I developed several essential skills. This happened to align with a couple of my personal goals which included finding something I was passionate about and pursuing it. Also, developing my problem solving skills which DT has helped me with.
I’ve begun to work on my own projects that I feel will help me in different aspects of engineering. For example, recently I built a guitar using parts I got online. This not only gave me a better understanding of the physical part of DT but also the effort that has to go into a project. I spent months researching different parts of a guitar, how they worked, and what choices I had to make. Being decisive has never been my strong suit but in the end I managed to come up with a plan. I also encountered several problems while assembling the guitar that I had to work around. For example, a pick up wasn’t working, the pickguard didn’t fit on the body, and the truss rod had to be adjusted. In the end, although the process was a bit stressful I was happy that I took a step forward in developing my skills.
It’s not only the engineering focused skills that I’ve developed, My projects have given me the opportunity to work on all three of my ATL’s. Self management was something I used to struggle with and something I still work on to this day. But whenever I was working on something I noticed that as time passed I became more productive and I was able to complete tasks more efficiently than before. Collaboration is a useful strength to have as an engineer in the future because for most projects you’re always going to be working with others. I experienced this when working with my brother to build a PC. Right now I am in the process of developing these various skills but identifying them has been the first step.
Looking to the future, I believe that I want to find a field in Engineering that interests me and I can start to specialise in. Although I want to move forward with my passion for Engineering, I am also aware that my interests could still shift in time. With this in mind, I am keeping an open window for any developments that may come my way.
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