September 15th 2018. On this day, more than 100 different university and college representatives came to visit UWCSEA Tampines to promote their institutions. This event not only lets students know what individual universities are like, but also serves to represent the UWCSEA community to each university. I volunteered to become an ambassador.
My role as a student ambassador was crucial to the presentation of UWCSEA students. The responsibilities included helping university representatives set up their individual booths and workshops, leading them to their workshop locations, and other ad-hoc duties such as resolving any technical issues efficiently and effectively, while constantly portraying professionalism and the UWCSEA values. During the day, I was required to solve a technical issue where the projection equipment did not have the correct type of adapter for the University of Kent representative’s computer. I needed to use critical thinking and communication skills to work with the other ambassadors to quickly come up with the solution to bring in a different laptop and transfer the presentation.
I was also one of the student ambassadors who registered the university representatives when they came into the school. This was a large responsibility as I would make the first impression of UWCSEA.
Overall, I used communication and critical thinking skills throughout this event to represent UWCSEA and ensure that it ran smoothly and that any issues were resolved with efficiency. I took on a position of responsibility and rose to the task with positivity, resulting in a well-run event.
In this photo I am with one of the other student ambassadors welcoming the university representatives to UWCSEA.
LO2- Demonstrate that challenges have been undertaken, developing new skills in the process.
Standing in front of a group to teach them something is always a challenge. A large amount of self-confidence and risk-taking is needed in this type of leadership, no matter whether the group is made of 2 or 20 people.
During the rehearsal of this year’s musical for high school students, Aida, on the 13th of September 2018, I took on the challenge of teaching 12 people in various grades the dance that my friend Georgia and I had choreographed for one of the songs. It was not an entirely new experience for me– last year I taught a group of 8 my choreography for an end result of a performance in the Middle and High School Dance Showcase. However, those were mostly Middle School students. There is an extra difficulty to teaching those older than you or closer to your age. Normally, it takes more assertiveness to let them know why they should pay attention to you, and why they should follow you. This was new to me.
In that rehearsal, I was tasked with becoming more assertive, more self-assured to take on this leadership role. In doing so, I increased my level of confidence in both my abilities as a dancer, choreographer and teacher, as well as a person.
Confidence is extremely important. Put simply, confidence equates to trust and reliability. Self-confidence helps you believe in yourself and gives you the courage to pursue your passions. This was my main takeaway from this rehearsal; it was a key moment in my journey to increase my confidence and become a better person in my own way as a result.
Below are some photos of myself teaching a dance the some of the other students in Aida.
Being involved in a student production also requires a lot of commitment and engagement during rehearsals. Due to the amount of effort that needs to be put in, there are many rehearsals, including weekend rehearsals that require taking out personal time to work towards the performance. Therefore, Aida is a long-term project requiring three seasons of regular commitment.
In a project that is long-term, there will inevitably be challenges along the way. One possible challenge that may appear is the task of balancing rehearsals with school work and other activities. In order to make sure that this does not become a large issue, I will most likely create a plan for splitting my time between everything that I have committed to doing.
Throughout the process, I will also have to adapt to new changes. For example, as a choreographer, I have to take into consideration the level of dance of the cast members. At first, for one of the songs, I realised that the choreography that I had created was too difficult for most of the cast and I therefore had to simplify it.
Additionally, one of the challenges we had to face so far was adapting to the new environment of the exam hall which was had to use since the auditorium was occupied. However, I believe that we were able to adapt well to the environment and were able to have a productive rehearsal.
I first joined Tabitha GC three years ago in Grade 8. Since then, I have taken on the role of Head of Sales and Logistics Manager in the following years as well as taken on other leadership roles within projects. This year, I am looking to increase my responsibility and involvement in Tabitha by being GC Chair. I think this position will help me develop my leadership skills and increase the depth of my experience in service.
I think that I stand a good chance at getting this position as I have been with Tabitha for three years and organised many of their events as well as participated heavily in the team discussions. I have also taken on leadership roles within projects that we have done and I would know how best to engage all the members of the service. Additionally, I am looking for more depth in my commitments so I would definitely be able to take on the extra responsibility. Lastly, for Project Week later on in the year, one of the options that I’m currently looking at is a house building trip to the Tabitha NGO in Cambodia. Being GC Chair would enable me to build a good foundation for my volunteer experience there.
My involvement in the Tabitha GC has allowed me to address global issues and take action to help those in need internationally. I am looking forward to being involved again this year.
Lydia and I discussed our thoughts after the cast list was revealed.
This week in Tabitha, I took on a leadership role of sorts where I contributed greatly to the discussion and made sure to organise the ideas from the group onto the minutes document. I brought my creativity to the meeting as I helped brainstorm ideas for improvements that we could make to the Tabitha gift certificates and the upcoming Holiday Fair. I was also innovative and took initiative by finding the reflections from last year’s Holiday Fair and explaining the things that we needed to work on this year. In this way, I used my previous experience to lead a discussion about planning for the event. Additionally, I took charge of recording the discussion digitally on the minutes document, showing my leadership and organisational skills. This helped the group as I was able to consolidate feasible ideas and note down everything so that we would be able to come back to it in order to refresh our memories instead of having to spend more time remembering our discussion and generating ideas again. Furthermore, I wrote a brief agenda for the next meeting so that we will have focus and know what needs to be done; therefore, we will be more efficient.
Overall, this week in Tabitha I was able to show my commitment and positive contribution to the Global Concern by taking on a leadership role in the meeting and using previous experience to look for areas that we can improve as a service group in general as well as during the upcoming Holiday Fair.
