Throughout my almost 5 years at UWC, I have learned lots of soft and hard skills through service. And yet I had never really sat down and reflected on them.
To assist in brainstorming, perhaps I should list out all of the services I have been a part of:
- Grey Area GC
- Befriending and Games with PPIS
- Equality Focus Group
- Literacy for Global Citizens
- Rainforest Restoration Project
- LEAP
- Gili Eco Trust GC
- Generation. Education. Period. FG
I notice that in High School, I only joined services related to environmental concerns. This is probably a product of greater self-awareness as to what sustainable development goals I am passionate about. Or it could just be climate anxiety.
This brings me to the first skill I believe I learned from service: The ability or willingness to reflect.
It is important to have the willingness or ability to question societal norms – from patriarchy to consumerism to the alienation of nature. An example of this for me would be how the Rainforest Restoration Project made me reconsider the value of trees. Not only are they valuable in an economic sense (sucking up pollution, slowing flooding, and providing oxygen) but they are living things just like us. I finally saw humanity or a soul, in a tree branch reaching for the sun. Further reflection made me realize how it is extremely hard not to value the other members of this Earth, as all hold up the fragile web of life that we increasingly rely on as the human population continues to skyrocket. Essentially, I realized that nature protection is a must for our own sake, but also a deeper sense of morality intrinsic to our humanity. After all, what’s the point of saving our species if we can’t save our humanity?
Public Speaking and Confidence
In the beginning of middle school, I was incredibly shy with little self-esteem. However, seeing service presentations and helping others prepare for them helped me realize that people do not pay much attention to a student presenter, and only sometimes really pay attention to what you say. This unfortunate realization gave me enough “fudge it” attitude to get up and present. Before I could really understand these presentations were getting more important, I found my confidence improving. In High School, I started to volunteer to present, now spurred on by the conscious goal to improve my speaking skills. I presented to a teacher’s meeting and a whole-grade assembly in my first year of the service executive. Also in service, my ideas were often valued and people appreciated the effort I put in, and so I started to see that I can actually contribute. Now, I am confident enough that I have applied for 2 leadership positions in Grade 11 – one of which has been confirmed. Essentially, service gave me a source of positive reinforcement and encouragement for me to be comfortable with putting myself out there.
Compromise
In hindsight, I notice that while my self-esteem was initially building throughout Middle School, this increasingly translated to only trusting myself to get the right things done efficiently in service and academics. I saw myself as the most dedicated and more clear-thinking with the best perspective. Perhaps this was true, but as the service program and students in it matured around me, this increasingly became debatable. Especially in High School, I found students extremely passionate about, knowledgable, and experienced in one particular field of service, who would contribute even more than I to discussions. This was most obvious when I joined LEAP as its vice-chair. Although I was in a leadership position, it was other people who had more experience collaborating with the service executive and utilizing the UWC service team, and it was my chair who had the impressive experience working on environmental initiatives. Finally, it was clear to me that listening to these people would teach me much than plowing on alone. This may also be a trust issue, which I have become more comfortable with in general, not just in service or learning context.
Digital communication
A hard skill that service helped me polish is digital communication. Although I use this skill a lot when making infographics for my academic classes, they have more varied aims and formats in service. This has allowed me to learn more about digital communication through various perspectives, and be open-minded about how to express various ideas.
All in all, I believe that service has been a wonderful learning experience, and I look forward to two more years of it.