Below is my Final CAS interview:
Category: CAS
Kahaani 2022 First Reflection
In the audio recording below, I discussed the following questions
- What activities did I plan?
- What was the outcome of my planning? How do I know?
- How did my plans change as the activity progressed? Why?
- What difficulties did I face in executing my plan?
- How did I overcome these challenges?
- How did I respond to changes in plans? Would I respond the same way in future? Why/why not?
- At what times did I face ethical decisions when participating in this activity?
- On what did I base my decision making? Why?
- How did my moral principles affect the decision I made?
- Was I ever in conflict with another person because our morals were different? How did we resolve this conflict?
- Have I become more or less principled as a result of my participation in this activity? Why?
Kampot Khmer Global Concern Sixth Reflection
Over the last 2 months, I have been participating in the GC as a transitionary chair there to assist the future leadership of the GC. At the beginning of the year, I helped new members of the GC familiarise themselves with the mission and vision of our GC and CLS. In the following sessions, I took feedback from them on how to improve as a group both within and outside our GC time. Then on, I began the leadership application process whereby I selected the new leadership team of the GC for this year with the help of both the teacher facilitators. This involved asking them to submit a short written application in the first stage. We then selected the candidates we wanted to interview.
During the interview we asked them to talk about everything, ranging from their past experiences to their strengths and weaknesses. After that, I met up with the teacher facilitators and we decided on the candidates we wished to go ahead with. On the other hand, the GC sessions went on as usual and we came up with a set of questions we wanted to ask our NGO partner during our first call. We also came up with a set of personal goals for this year. All in all, it has been a very productive half term.
A list of goals that we came up with during one of our sessions:
CAS Project
CAS Grade 11 Reflection
Have you made progress? What’s next?
- I did quite a few activities in Grade 11 from which I built up a range of skills and qualities.
- Now, I would like to pare back and focus on academics.
IFP Fifth Reflection
In the audio clip below, I have discussed the following questions:
- How did I maintain my motivation for this activity?
- What impact did my commitment have on the success of this activity?
- What things affected my commitment levels, ability to persevere or resolve?
Service Exec Fifth Reflection
In the audio clip below, I have answered the following questions:
- What previous experience have I had with an activity like this?
- What am I good at? What are my strengths?
- What would I like to improve?
- Why have I struggled in some areas?
Kampot Khmer Global Concern Fifth Reflection
In the audio clip below, I have discussed the following questions:
- Who did I collaborate with?
- What made it easy or difficult to work together?
- How important was collaboration to achieving the outcome or my goal ?
- What could I do in the future to be a more effective team player?
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Yoga Second Reflection
In the audio clip below, I have discussed the following questions:
- What am I good at? What are my strengths?
- What would I like to improve?
- Have I improved and in what areas? How do I know?
- Why have I struggled in some areas/
Humanities Magazine Fourth Reflection
In the audio below, I have discussed the following questions:
- What was it about this activity that I found challenging/difficult?
- How will I approach a challenge like this in the future?
- What new skills have I developed in this activity?
- How can I use the skills I developed in this activity in other areas of my life?
IFP Fourth Reflection
In the audio below, I discussed the following questions:
- How did I maintain my motivation for this activity?
- How did I help others or how did others help me to stay committed to this activity?
- What things affected my commitment levels, ability to persevere or my resolve?
Here are a few of the workshops I have attended so far:
Here is our planning so far:
Service Exec Fourth Reflection
In the audio, these are the questions that I have responded to:
- What previous experience have I had with an activity like this?
- What am I good at? What are my strengths?
- What would I like to improve?
- How has my involvement in this activity made me aware of my strengths and areas for growth?
Here is the proposal we have been working on:
Kampot Khmer Global Concern Fourth Reflection
- In the discussion below, I have spoken about the following questions:
- How have my actions had a positive/negative impact on this issue?
- How has my thinking about this issue changed as a result of my participation in this activity? Am I more open-minded, caring, principled as a result?
Here are a few posters we made for the Talent Quest:
Yoga First Reflection
Here are the questions that I discussed in the audio below:
- What was it about this activity that I found challenging?
- What risks have I taken as part of the activity?
- What actions did I take to overcome these challenges?
- How will I approach a challenge like this in the future?
- What new skills have I developed in this activity?
Humanities Magazine Third Reflection
Here is the discussion of the learning outcome:
Questions answered:
- What was it about this activity that I found challenging?
- What actions did I take to overcome these challenges?
- How will I approach a challenge like this in future?
- What new skills have I developed in this activity?
- How important were the skills I developed to achieving success in the activity?
- How can I use the skills I developed in this activity in other areas of my life?
Here is the final draft of the second article:
Service Exec Third Reflection
Here is the discussion of the 1st learning outcome:
Questions answered:
- What are my strengths?
- What would I like to improve?
- How has my involvement in this activity made me aware of my strengths and areas for growth?
- Have I improved and in what areas?
Here are my notes pertaining to the conversation:
Kahaani Third reflection
Above is the final video from the Light plot.
Below is the discussion of the learning outcomes:
Questions answered:
- What activities did I plan?
- What was the outcome of my planning?
- How did I respond to changes in plans?
- At what times did I face ethical decisions?
- On what did I base my decision making?
- Have I become more or less principled as a result/
IFP Third Reflection
A couple of sessions ago, we did an activity called the Jahs and Kays, where we were sorted into 2 different groups (countries) with varying financial conditions. I was in the group with the worse condition. We had to collaborate with other members of the group to create a monument for a national event when the other group came in and demanded to help us. Wary of their help we entered into discussions to ensure that they would not take any undue advantage of us. This helped me develop my communication and negotiation skills as I was one of the 3 members sent to the other groups to explain our beliefs and situation.
In the explanation to my team members, I realised that I wanted the other group to help our country as soon as possible. However, the other people in my group wanted to ensure that they had fully scrutinised every aspect of the other group’s plan to help us before agreeing. I wanted to present my own opinion to the other group as I was one of the chosen delegates to speak to them. However, my principles were against this decision. I believe that the wishes of the majority must be respected. So, my moral principles affected my decision to not go against my group and present my own opinion. However, this decision backfired as we were left without help by the end of the discussion. Thus, I think the interference of my morals did not help. As a result, I believe I have become less principled and more willing to go against my morals.
Kampot Khmer Global Concern Third Reflection
The sessions before the break passed quite well for the GC. We have started to prepare for the launch of our Talent show: The Kampot Talent Quest. A few weeks back, we started to communicate with the service department regarding the quest. Through this collaboration we were able to devise our action plan for the talent show, and ensure that everything was in keeping with the rules and regulations of Singapore. This will ensure that CLS will be able to benefit from this fundraiser. Collaboration with the service department and the other members of the GC in the last few days, will ensure that my actions as a part of the GC have a positive impact on the community in CLS.
As a result of my participation in this process (and the activity overall), I have begun to understand the complexity of the issue that the community at CLS currently faces: the issue of receiving funds. All this while, I had been under the impression that the funds we sent to CLS were not under a lot of rules and regulations. Being a part of the team that ensures all rules and regulations are met has made me realise that sometimes it is very difficult to transfer funds. This realisation has led me to the understand that sometimes CLS is unable to receive funds due to the sender being unable to upkeep all rules. In a way, I have become more understanding of the issues than I was before.
Here is one of the posters we created for the Talent quest:
IFP Second Reflection
The first few sessions of IFP went quite well. After the session on conflict, its nature, its domain and its types, I can sufficiently say that I understand a lot more about it more about it now. I used to think that all types of conflicts were very similar in nature in that they arose from disagreement and could be physical or emotional. Now I think that conflict is a multifaceted concept that has different domains and can even be psychological. In this session we also learnt about the different types of conflict like regional, global, international, community, etc…
I showed my commitment, resilience and perseverance for this activity by attending every session so far and engaging with the content. Alongside showing my commitment this has been very rewarding for me personally as I have gotten the chance to learn about topics such as conflict, in depth.I continued to maintain my motivation for this activity by thinking of the invaluable knowledge that I would gain by being a part of such an activity. Although MY commitment didn’t make the activity “successful”, I truly believe that it helped my knowledge of topics related to peace building, which added to the activity’s aim of teaching students to be successful peace builders. One of the activities that we did was drawing each other’s portraits.
Here is the portrait I drew:
Here is my portrait:
Humanities Magazine Second Reflection
In the last few sessions of Humanities magazine, I finished the article that I had started writing. During this process, I re-discovered my strength of finishing my work on time as I was done with my article a long time before it was due. A challenge that I faced was writing “creatively” since most of my pieces are usually styled like an essay. I overcame this challenge by asking my peers to give me feedback and suggestions on how to make the piece a more captivating read. A risk that I took was in the name of the title. I am not accustomed to creating eye-catching titles as essays mostly have titles that are more factual than interesting. I think that this risk paid off because my peers and the teachers were quite happy with it.
A skill that I developed because of this activity is definitely being efficient with time. I discovered that I was able to write the article in a short amount of time and the editing did not take up a very long time. Later, when my editor suggested some changes that I could make to the piece, I did that quite quickly. Lastly, I hope to continue developing my time-management skills alongside writing more creatively as the year progresses and we start working on our second article. In addition to that, below is the second piece that I have started working on.
Kampot Khmer Global Concern Second Reflection
Questions asked:
- Who did you collaborate with?
- How important was collaboration to achieving the outcome?
- What could you do in the future to be a more effective team player?
Kahaani Second Reflection
In Kahaani, we have started to teach our choreography. For the first few sessions I split the main group into 2 separate groups. Then my partner and I taught each group one of the dances. We taught it progressively. So, for the first session, I taught them (my group) the first half of the dance that only they would be learning. Then for the next session, I taught them the second half of that dance. The third session was spent on understanding the formations that the dance was meant to have and performing according to it. After that, I ensured that they practiced in that formation for a week. That week was majorly spent on trying to perfect the movements in addition to ensuring that everyone was in sync and in formation.Thus, I can successfully say that I have shown initiative and planning in the entire process since I split them up in two separate groups while ensuring that there would be no conflict between the members of the dance so that the dance is not affected and the dancers are able to perform to the best of their abilities. For example: Ensuing that everybody got a group they would feel comfortable and safe in.In the future, I will continue to focus on planning and initiative as there are more formations that have to be created, movements taught and the lighting sorted out.
I also had to consider the ethical implications of my actions while creating the formations. This took a lot of consideration and planning since the ethics of each decision had to be considered. I was caught between the idea of ensuring that everybody filled a place according to their merit and the idea of ensuring that everybody had a chance to be at the front of the formation.This was a very hard decision for me as above all it was the complex idea of equal opportunity for all and merit based opportunities. Thus, it was quite difficult to come upon a decision. I also had to simultaneously keep in mind that conflicts could arise regarding the positions they were given. Thus, this process involved a bit of ethical decision. I finally arrived on the idea of equal opportunity for all as that is what my moral values dictated. So, I completely based my decision on my values in a way. I was also in conflict with my partner due to this decision as her moral values were for merit based opportunity. We solved this through asking a neutral party who voted for equal opportunity.
Service Exec Second Reflection
After the beginning few sessions, I started planning for the Focus Group workshop regarding the Human rights day events with the focus group officer. During the planning of the workshop we had to send quite a few emails and calendar invites to various people involved in the focus groups. We also had to reach out to a few groups regarding the completion of their goal setting document. Here I was able to utilise my strength of being organised and committed as I was able to successfully plan for the workshop and ensure that all relevant documentation had been completed.
During the workshop, I presented the protocols surrounding the event to the representatives from each focus group. I think that I was able to improve upon the aspect of leading sessions and presenting ideas to people. Alongside I think that I was also able to improve in my interactions with them because I had to frequently go around and speak to them regarding their ideas for the final event. Regardless, I still need to work on leading sessions as I did struggle with answering all of their questions regarding the event even though there were improvements in the manner that I presented all the relevant information to them.
Kahaani First Reflection
Before beginning official rehearsals for kahaani , I took initiative and planned what I would be teaching the other members of my dance group in the first session. The outcome of my planning was having the choreography done to some section of the final music, which I could teach for the first few lessons. My plans changed as the activity progressed because I was planning to have all members of the dance on stage for the whole length of the music. However, restrictions dictated that only 15 members could be on stage at one time, so this plan had to be changed.
A difficulty that I faced while executing this plan was the lack of time to think it through as the first session was coming up soon. I overcame this challenge by efficient communication with my partner and managing my time well. Due to this, I was able to come up with the idea of splitting the dancers into 2 groups who would be performing in different segments of the piece. I think I would respond in the same way if faced with this challenge in the future since I believe that time management is a skill I have acquired from these experiences.
Humanities Magazine First Reflection
The first few sessions of Humanities magazine went quite well as I began exploring potential topics that I could write about. Something that I found difficult was choosing a topic since there was a plethora of topics to choose from. A risk that I took was deciding to explore a new area of economics which I do not know much about. This has become another challenge for me. An action that I had taken to overcome the challenge of too many choices was to choose a topic that had potential to be engaging and that I didn’t have much previous exposure to. However, I haven’t yet overcome the challenge of writing about a new topic since I haven’t had much time to research and then gather my thoughts.While approaching a challenge like this in the future, I would be careful to ensure that I keep a significant amount of time towards researching about the issue.
In this activity, I have developed the skill of writing articles as opposed to writing essays and managing my time effectively. I measured my improvement by comparing this piece to my previous pieces. The skill of time management was easier to develop since that was something I had been doing for a long time now. The skills that I have developed are very useful for this activity as I will have to use time efficiently while writing articles and the skill of writing articles as supposed to essays is important because I am writing for a magazine. I can definitely use the skill of time management in other areas of my life and the skill of writing articles may be important when I write such a piece for my english work or if I choose to pursue a journalism course in the future.
Kampot Khmer Global Concern First Reflection
The first few sessions of the GC went quite well as we began to investigate what support our partners wanted from us. We also split the team into different teams and began to brainstorm what we could do this year while keeping the current situation in mind. I have been participating in this Global Concern since the last two years so I did know about the issues at hand to some extent. However, this year, I learnt how the students at CLS (the school that we support by providing scholarships to about 30 students and 2 teachers’ salaries) had been impacted by the coronavirus. This issue is quite important because it directly impacts these students’ future circumstances. If these students drop out of school due to COVID, they will not be able to escape the poverty cycle.
Hence, it is especially important to support them in these times. I think my actions (participating in the GC and brainstorming what the year could look like) have had a positive impact on this issue since the aim has been to plan the year in such a way that we are able to maximise our fundraising so that we can support CLS to our maximum capacity. I think that my thinking regarding this issue has changed as a result of participating in this activity. Earlier I was concerned with the issue of providing quality education to underprivileged children, but now I have become more caring in the sense that I actually think about how education impacts these childrens’ lives. I hope that we are able to fundraise sufficient amounts this year so that no child has to drop out of school.
Culturama Last Reflection
The video above is taken from one of the tech runs of our Culturama dance. In the final stages of our performance, I collaborated with the Culturama committee, lighting department, teachers along with other dancers and our dance leaders. An issue that caused difficulty while working together was the placement of people on stage while socially distancing. As we had to do this all the time, it became quite hard to perform the choreography and switch formations without breaking socially distancing. Social distancing was the challenge that we faced and I think that it was quite difficult to overcome this challenge but we did do so. Collaborating here was especially important to ensure that the event went well and no rules were broken. In the future, to become a better team player I would have to be more aware of what is happening around me and try to be more adaptive to new situations (such as the one we were faced with now).
Service Exec First Reflection
The first few sessions of Service Exec went quite well as I got an opportunity to look at what the Exec does to support various groups within the service department. It was also quite exciting to understand what I would be doing to support Focus groups this year as my role entails supporting them with standard procedures and protocols in relation to the events that they hold. In terms of the previous experience that I have had, I was the Vice Chair of my GC ( Kampot Khmer) last year wherein I supported the chair with all GC related work. From that experience I have realised that my strengths are meeting deadlines and remaining committed to the activity. However, I have also realised that my weaknesses lie in interacting with people and leading sessions. I hope to work on and improve those areas.
Being involved in this activity has made me realise that the strengths and weaknesses that I have spoken about still remain as they were. However, I think that I have improved in my interactions with other people. I know this because I have had to collaborate with various people in the Exec and I have felt quite confident doing so. Nevertheless, I have struggled with leading discussions, so I still feel quite nervous before presenting my views in front of the team. I think that I have struggled in this area because I am quite introverted and have a hard time presenting my ideas in general. Regardless, I hope to improve upon this area.
Culturama First Reflection
The first few sessions of Culturama went quite well as I got to work with many people and I also learnt some new choreography. During this activity, I collaborated with my dance leaders to ensure that their version of the dance could be achieved. I also collaborated with other dancers while working on formations, rehearsing the choreography and matching the timing. I think that it was very easy to work together in this project because there were set right and wrongs because the choreography was set, there was no room for interpretation, which meant that no one had differing ideas which could lead to conflict potentially. A challenge that we did face while working together was socially distancing. Sometimes, this was hard to do while switching formations and while rehearsing together. We overcame these challenges by going through the switches slowly to see if we could do them without breaking social distancing rules, if we couldn’t, we changed the switch.
While rehearsing, we overcame this challenge by being conscious of these rules always. I think that in this way, we could overcome all our challenges. Collaboration was especially important to achieve this goal because the dance could not have been executed without collaborating with each other. To become a better team player in the future, I think that I could improve my listening and awareness of my surroundings.