Personal Statement

Dear Parents and Mentor,

paragraph 1: Introducing yourself and your goals

paragraph 2: explaining experiences you have had that have led to your goals. Show dont tell

paragraph 3: What are your plans to move closer to your goal. Consider whether you goals are right for you. Show don’t tell

paragraph 4: Conclusion, a summation of where you feel you are in terms of how yiu feel about what you need to do to move forwards.

I intend to reflect on this past year, focusing on my goals and how I plan to achieve them. I believe that various circumstances and experiences have shaped me as well as my goals. This year has been a combination of fun, stressful and confusing. It was a struggle to get through times in the year due to mainly academic issues. We were well prepared in Grade 8 to step into high school with ease but that did not guarantee us to get through Grade 9 with no obstacles. As expected, there were multiple obstacles throughout the year. But, unlike previous years, we had exams this year. Though they were only mocks, it is something we are completely new to. I originally expected to get through Grade 9 with few struggles until the exams. In my mind, exams would be the most stressful week ever and I imagined myself to study for weeks beforehand.

I was wrong. Grade 9 has been so much more than exams and studying. My Grade 9 experience has consisted of taking part in sport, creating friendships, developing interests and simply having fun. At the beginning of the school year I began to realise this and started to set goals for myself. Aside from doing well on exams, I focused on

Activities have been a major part of my life during Grade 9. I have done many activities throughout the whole year from season 1-4. The activities that I have done are Volleyball 16U Boys, Preseason Basketball Boys, 16U Boys Basketball B, Preseason Volleyball and Postseason Basketball Boys. The activity that I enjoyed the most was probably 16U Boys Basketball because I really enjoy basketball and it was fun being on the team despite the fact that we did not make the playoffs. I developed some skills and qualities while doing sports such as self-management as I was able to manage my time better this year. Some activities that I had started after 4:30 which gave me time to do whatever I wanted. At the beginning of the year, I would only play with friends or do something on my laptop but, towards the end of the year, I tried to do some work at home.

Service is also a big part of UWC and has a huge importance in our lives. The service that I did this year was Christian Outreach to the Handicapped (COH). Although it was the only service I did, it lasted 2 seasons. This was actually an activity that I also participated in last year. In this service, we basically do activities and interact with our clients. After doing this service, I think that I have gotten to know our clients better. But this year, we had more fun and active ideas planned which got our clients really happy. A big challenge was communication. We also faced this issue last year but I think that towards the end of the service, we coped with it fine. The problem was that it was difficult to get some of the people to participate in some activities as they did not speak english or they could not hear us as some of them were deaf.

In Grade 9, we also went to India. During this expedition, we did a lot of things but mainly, we boatied around the whole island. We even went to africa to experience slavery and dehydration. I am not exactly sure how much we boatied but it took us eight thousand days to get back to the starting point. The best part of the trip was making and getting to know my friends better. This trip really showed me my physical capabilities. Some skills and qualities that I developed were, self-management because I was able to listen and do the activities as well as having fun while being safe. I also developed my creativity because we did quite a few things in our own time that were really fun. An example was when it was raining heavily in the morning but despite this, we found a way to communicate to the people in the tents next to us.

This year, I have not been pressured as much as I thought and I think that I have been able to cope with most of the learning that takes place. My favourite non-academic subject this year has been P.E. because I have learnt many new skills and enjoyed myself a lot. I think that this subject being such a physical and active subject made it one of my favourite subjects as I love playing sports.

My favourite academic subject this year has been Science because I have been able to make connections and focus in class. I have found most things that we have done this year really cool and interesting which definitely is a big part of the reason I like Science so much this year. In fact, this is one of the three subjects i think I have shown improvement in this year. The other two are Mathematics and Art.

I personally think that although my grades have not really shown too much growth, I think that I am able to really understand what is happening in class and it is very easy for me to cope with all the learning we have been doing this year. Some next steps that I want to set for next year are to attempt more challenging questions because I don’t want to limit my knowledge and instead, I want to expand on it. Secondly, I think that I have improved in Art this year because I have really liked all the topics that we have been doing in class. My favourite out of all the projects we worked on this year was probably Visible People. In this, we worked in groups to create a person or celebrity that really impacted the world out of tape. We chose Kanye West as he is a rapper that many people look up to and are inspired by. Although this was not the best piece of art that I have done this year, it was definitely the most enjoyable.

An academic goal that I have set for next year is to study extra as I know that if I want to be better, it will take more practice and I have also learnt that doing homework is not always enough to exceed limits and go beyond average. Next year, I also want to be able to share more work with you and be able to show you what we are doing in every subject. I think that to achieve this, I will have more conversations during the weekend about what happened during the week and anything that is coming up. A third goal for next year is to manage my homework better as I have noticed a pattern that I have been doing homework very late at night when I should be asleep. To accomplish this goal, I would like to set scheduled times to play and do schoolwork as well as extra work.

 

Best Regards,

Mehul