Author: singh18531@gapps.uwcsea.edu.sg

This reflection post focuses on Learning outcomes 2 and 3, which are Challenge and Initiative respectively.

Season 3 of Ladakh was focused on making Shanti Aman Ball a great night for both parents and GCs involved, however, unfortunately, due to the lack of people attending the event, the lack of funding rendered the project infeasible. When Ladakh GC got news about the limited number of people signing up for the event, we responded as quickly as possible to spread awareness of the event in hopes that students encourage their parents to attend. For instance, we even campaigned to the faculty members of the school, giving a talk during a teacher’s meeting about the importance of the ball. I feel like if the same situation presented itself in the future, I would have done the same because this plan was successful in encouraging the teachers to sign up to fill the minimal number of spots required. However, we should have kept in mind that the Shanti Aman Ball could have depended too much on the teachers, and thus focuses on campaigning to students and parents alike. However, the way that we would have responded to such a crisis could have been different. Instead of simply putting up posters, the GCs would be more proactive in advocating about the ball in assemblies, for example, through videos or a speech. I think that the posters were not something we should have relied on for spreading information about the event, because they are largely ignored as students walk past them to their classes for example. Additionally, this also relied on the students to be the messengers of the ball to their parents, which is not a great idea since it is likely that they simply forget about the event by the time they reach home. Instead, I think the focus should have been on advocating to the parents, who would be the attendees of the event. I do believe that it was a good idea to spread the message through the eBrief, however, once again, I don’t think we should have depended on it because personally, I know that my parents never read the eBrief so it isn’t as good of a messenger as the GCs once concluded. Instead, if we were to do it again next time, I think GC members should attempt to speak at one of the parents coffee mornings or set up a table outside of the Parent Teacher conferences to attract attention and incentivise parents to attend the Shanti Aman Ball.

I think that following the news about the termination of the Shanti Aman Ball event, Ladakh GC found it incredibly challenging to regain its footing to make a definite impact upon the UWC community. We were all very disheartened because we had all spent lots of time into making the ball happen in the first place, and knowing that when this ball didn’t come into fruition, many communities back in Ladakh, Pakistan, or Bangladesh were impacted (since the money could have helped better their lives). Although we did our part in the Family Festival, as part of the Green Fingers or selling baked goods, we felt like we made a very limited impact to help the Ladakhi community, which was indefinitely a challenge heading into Season 4.

Thank you!

Here is my video reflection for the HS Yearbook.

Thank you!

Economeast has continued to be a stimulating and enriching experience that furthers my involvement as a student of the UWC community. However, one of the defining words of Season 3 Economeast would be challenging and thus, (requiring of) perseverance.

My contribution towards the Economeast team has been in the form of a journalist, whose “job” description requires the submitting of 2 articles over the course of 4 seasons. By seasons 1&2, all journalists had finished writing, editing, and revising their articles by their peers or student editors. I had already devoted a lot of time towards this initiative previously, thus I awas relatively satisfied with the end result of my articles. However, in season 3, the articles are edited by Ms Price, an economics teacher who is in charge of the publication. This came towards the end of season 3, which is another way of saying closer to the exams. One of my articles got quite a stern and harsh remark by Ms Price, with roughly 40% of the article deleted. This was severely challenging for me because I had become very comfortable with my article and the idea that many people will be reading it once it is published. Additionally, being in such a predicament was relatively a new territory for me (which as it happens was the same for many of the other journalists), which although was unintentional, enabled me to learn from and tend to my mistakes. I had acquired new skills of this critical review of my article as a result. Firstly, I understood the journalism-specific skills required in order to make an article as effective and accurate as possible. More specifically, the major new skill acquired was the incorporation and thorough integration of facts and statistics to prove my argument in the article. I think has many benefits for me since I take English Literature as one of my Higher Level subjects, so I can use this skill when making my literary commentaries more factual and precise.

One of the more internal skills gained from this experience was perseverance in the face of challenges. I had to edit the article again, for roughly the 3rd or 4th time, which could be a little disappointing at times, since I had already given lots of time to it. Nonetheless, I stuck with the process of revising the edits from Ms Price and the student editors, thus being further involved in the activity, all in hopes that readers could understand the world around them through an economics prism when reading my article.

Thank you!

The Yearbook has been a great experience so far. In season 2, it has picked up the pace in the sense that it requires my group, of Sponsorship and Marketing, to do its job and find the yearbook sponsors to be able to print it. It is definitely much more demanding than last season where all we did was brainstorm a list of sponsors. Instead, now we contact them and wait for a response.

It can be a little discouraging sometimes because there are so many rules that the school makes the Yearbook abide by, in terms of placing restrictions on who we can sponsor. For examples, tuition places are not allowed to be there because the school feels like it encourages students to go there, which is perfectly valid, however now, the group is made to approach relatively random places, like restaurants and dentists, who are less likely to want to sponsor a school’s yearbook. This is quite challenging especially since the group is small (only consists of 6 people) and the stakes are high (since if we don’t get sponsors, no one in high school gets a yearbook). I think something that has helped is the effective communication in the group. All of us don’t know each other well enough to get distracted but are good enough friends to be comfortable enough to update each other with the news with our individual possible sponsors. All of us collaborate with each other, which is extremely important because we need all the information we can get in regards to the sponsors who have accepted to help for example. Moreover, since we are a relatively small group striving to achieve an important goal, it makes me feel as though my commitment and input, no matter how small, are valuable to achieving the end product, which is a really good feeling because I know that I helped create the yearbook, which fundamentally is a piece of memory that students cherish as we grow older.

Thank you!

Economeast so far has been a fun experience for me. In season 1, my main role in the activity was being a “journalist” and writing articles for the publication that should be published towards the end of the year. However, I have recently joined the sponsorship team, which as the name suggests, is where I look for sponsors for the publication. I think this made me more involved with the activity itself because now I played a key role in making sure that all the hard work everyone put in actually bears fruit, in the form of Economeast 2018. I think this was important in making me feel more significant in the activity itself. However, alongside the added responsibility came the added need for collaboration and commitment. I collaborated with the head of sponsorship in the form of messaging and emails, and building this relationship was important, especially since she is also the sponsorship head of my yearbook group. I think having that really made it much easier to work with her because we both understood how tedious it was to wait for the possible sponsors and how hard it was to get responses from them too.

I also definitely saw some similarities in the Yearbook and the Economeast sponsors, which made it difficult for me because there was competition for sponsors in both groups and it was complicated to favour the sponsorship of one publication over another. For example, I was to contact Prepzone to sponsor Economeast, however, they chose to sponsor yearbook itself. So although I was a little disheartened in Economeast that Wednesday (since Prepzone was the only response we had), by the time Yearbook came around on Friday, I was happy (and having mixed emotions at the same time).

I think Economeast also requires a lot of commitment because it needs 2 articles per “journalist”. It definitely added to my already long to-do list, because although I wanted to finish it quickly and in time, I also wanted it to be a good read for the readers. I think that the major reason behind why I completed them both on time was because of the leadership of the group, who are constantly on top of everything so I didn’t want to let them down. Furthermore, the longer it takes for everyone to finish, the longer the magazine comes out and I really want to see my name and my photo on the initial pages.

Thank you!