It is the final stretch before the conclusion of my career contacts journey. As of today, Our group has been finalising our presentation for Demo Day on the 23rd. Our focus for our presentation is to present ways in which Tribe Tours can revamp their social media advertising campaign for one of their existing tours, Chinatown Murder Mystery. We came up with these ideas as a group by pooling together our collective skills and experience. My partners had the experience of participating in the tour while I had the skill to organise everybody for a group meeting. Our presentation and new ideas have been broken down into 3 parts. A Brochure and Infographic, funny signs and props for a “photobooth” and a new brand of Instagram posts and stories that engages the audience better. We decided that a single page infographic would be highly effective in conveying the details of the game in a visual manner which would be more appealing to our younger target audience. The funny signs and props for the photo booth would also be a way for people to add flair to their photos and make them more memorable. The photo booth will also allow us to gain brand recognition. Finally, Tribe Tours is in need of a more established Instagram presence with a theme that coincides with their mission. We plan to implement more engaging and shareable content.

New skills have been developed in this process as I have learnt how to identify Tribe Tours target audience. I achieved this through proper communication with both my team members and Yock Song. My team members stated that some of the puzzles on the murder mystery tour were too easy. Yock Song also stated that they were trying to target a younger audience who would be feeling the most boredom during these trying times. I was able to show commitment and perseverance throughout this entire journey as I was able to dedicate sufficient time to meet with my group and Yock Song despite having a lot of schoolwork.

The benefits of this group are that we are able to compensate for each other shortcomings. For example, my groupmates were on holiday break so they were free enough to experience the murder mystery tour by themselves. I was also able to arrange meetings and facilitate conversation.

Here, I am reflecting on what has happened so far. I collected these anecdotes from my groupmates through informal interviews/conversations over discord.

I have just finished the kickoff for the career contacts pilot and I must say that the experience is not as stressful as I thought. The organisation has given us plenty of platforms to exchange ideas and communicate with our group members. It is also really convenient for students to ask questions to mentees and platforms such as Slack facilitate this line of communication. We are also directed to the platforms known as Medium, Thinkific and Miro to cultivate our learning.

My strengths in regards to this project are my communication and collaboration skills. Communication is highly important as I have 3 different groups that I need to communicate with which are my groupmates, my Career Contact mentors and the business. Ensuring that everybody is on the same page is a challenging task but when accomplished, it reduces confusion and saves time. Collaboration is even more important considering that there are at least 4 people that I need to work with. To collaborate effectively, I will ensure that everybody’s opinion is heard and that the workload is distributed fairly. This will uplift our morale and maximise efficiency. I think my biggest weaknesses is not taking enough risks. I am always worried about maintaining a realistic perspective and ensuring that our ideas are feasible but sometimes I’m afraid that this will hinder some of our more creative ideas. My second biggest weakness is impatience when a task runs over its deadlines. This will present a considerable challenge since the mentors made it clear that some work will have to be done after hours and there is still a lot of uncertainty surrounding the timeline of completing our project. I also don’t know how to effectively use a lot of business software which will undoubtedly improve as Career contacts will provide lessons for that.

The general timeline that we have been given is Weekly meetings with groupmates, spontaneous meetings to be decided by our group with mentors and business (we have to meet with the business at least once every 2 weeks) and meetings with the other groups to undergo digital skill training sessions which are held every week. The final Demo day is on December 23rd.

The ethical implications of our marketing campaign are to ensure that it isn’t too graphic and the distribution of these advertisements do not put anybody at risk of unnecessary contact. when advertising the Chinatown murder mystery tour, we must ensure that we are respectful of the local heritage and not take too many creative liberties.

I am about to participate in MUNOFS. I will be representing Turkey in NATO but the issue I will be debating is yet to be announced. But my role as Turkey in a organization such as NATO will inevitably force me to deal with issues that have global significance such as the Armenia-Azarbaijani conflict, Turkey purchasing weapons from Russia which has been seen as NATO’s rival and other disputes. The conference has not started yet so I will not be able to offer a understanding of the issue or know what action to take against it. What I could do is do research on my countries stance in several NATO issues and draft a resolution during the conference.

While drafting the resolution, I will also have to debate the ethical implications of some of the clauses. This will come in the form of amandments where we need to debate whether the solutions outlined in the clauses are ethical, feasible and viable. I will discuss more about the amandments made to unethical clauses or sub-clauses.

In terms of the 5 stages of a CAS, I am currently at the second stage which is preperatio. I already stated my roles and respnsibilities in MUNOFS, which is representing Turkey’s real-world interests. My plan of action will be to develop a country profile, a opening speech and draft a resolution. I have to accomplish this soon as the issues will be released within the next few days. I need to engage my writing, research, speaking, imrpovisation and articulation skills.

The benefits of working collaberatively are that I can gain more opinions and better feedback on my resolution from my sponsors. I can also work witht he oppsoition to compromise on my resolution and produce a document that can satisfy the majority of people.

Joining SEC in the category of new activities is “Changing the world through photography”. With art being a requirement in IB CAS, I was initially worried about the activity that I would take to fulfil my art requirement. I was never good at drawing and I hated dancing because I lacked confidence. This heavily narrowed my options into either pottery, creative writing or photography. Pottery was completely eliminated from the picture since I had no prior experience or relationship with the activity and had zero interest. I decided against creative writing since I felt that writing lacked subtlety when compared to visual media such as photographs. Photography was always an interesting activity and this was likely because my father was also very interested and invested in photography. Seeing his framed photos adorning our apartment walls made me realise the impact of photographs. My interest in History and Global politics made me realise how much influence and change a photograph can bring, it can spark a revolution, erase ignorance and incite massive change.

My strengths are that have a basic knowledge of how to use a camera and compose a picture such as using an earthworm shot. The areas that I can improve in include finding subjects to photograph, using more advanced settings to fine-tune the image, focusing and zooming properly and editing photos. This will require me to acquire several news skills such as photoshop, applying filters, adjusting saturation and learning the finer details of using a camera. My plan and outcome for this activity will be to produce an image that evokes feelings of pride in our school.

This is one of the new services that I joined this year and one that I regret not joining sooner. Being led through the presentation by Aneesh Patabell and Catherine Parkin made me realise that doing service in SEC allowed me to fill a gap that no other service was able to. SEC is offering the opportunity for me to work with people in-person and see the effects of my work right in front of me. This will probably give me a sense of satisfaction and accomplishment that I cannot achieve when helping an overseas community. The 3 learning outcomes that I wish to explore in this post is learning outcomes 1,2 and 3.

The strengths that I possess also contribute to the reason that I joined SEC in the first place. Given my experience in IGCSE combined with my HL in Business management, I thought that I may as well transfer those skills and knowledge into an activity that made an impact. These skills and knowledge that I acquired include marketing, setting goals, creating advertisements, conducting market research and many more. I think some areas for growth is strengthening my knowledge of handling and analysing financial accounts and developing my creative flair which will be essential for website development.  I think that a big and new challenge that I will face in this service is the reliance and trust placed in me by the GC’s that hire us as consultants. I will have to develop new skills including consistent and efficient communication, confidence, time-management and meeting standards/expectations. To plan for this experience, I will have to search for opportunities where I can initiate an experience since it is only the beginning of the service.

{LO1} This is one of the new activities that I have joined this year. I joined Ears of East because I am an HL global politics student and hence, had a greater and reinvigorated interest in international affairs. Joining this political podcast group allowed me to collaborate with other people that have the same interests as me. I also wish to develop my communication skills and be able to convey my ideas in a concise manner. Planning the podcasts also allows me to gain insights into political issues that I can reference in my exams and draw relations to Global politics concepts. Having productive conversations with people and raising awareness about political issues is also extremely rewarding for me. Going into this activity, I think my strengths are my research skills, knowledge of international relations and awareness of current events. I have participated in similar activities such as IB Global Politics and IGCSE Global Perspectives.

{LO3} In terms of planning for this CAS experience, we have not begun planning any podcast episodes yet and have so far, observed the style of other podcasts to draw inspiration from. But once we start planning activities, I would like to explore issues such as the US elections and the electoral college, Russian Separatist Alexei Navalny and the Mulan Controversy. {LO6} I think these issues would be interesting to explore as they are extremely significant. For example, the Mulan controversy demonstrates how Hollywood would ignore human rights violations (the systemic imprisonment of Uighur Muslims) to gain access to the biggest box office in the world. But if given the choice to decide on the next political podcast, I would choose to discuss a topic that was relevant, relatively unknown amongst students and significant on a global level.

{LO1} During the planning of these podcasts, I wish to incorporate more wit and humour within the podcast such as playful banter, pop culture references and using subversive comedy which is best demonstrated in the movie “Airplane”. But we must also walk the fine line between humour and cringe. We should also take note of what makes other podcasts such as Joe Rogan’s podcast so successful. One of the primary contributors to their success is inviting guest stars whose opinions are valued audiences. We can replicate this by inviting representatives of services that relate to political issues and heads of grades.

There almost seems to be a recurring trend amongst the activities I choose, to fulfil an obligation rather than to gain something valuable out of it. But this may be the case with my original participation in MUN but it was actually an obligation in another sport that led me to play and most importantly, enjoying Badminton. Swimming was the sport that I dedicated my grade 4 to grade 9 extracurricular times too. I was persuaded into the sport by my mother who convinced me that it was a great way to cool off from Singapore’s hot and humid weather and it was a sport that had low rates of injury. But as the years dragged by, I felt like a dolphin at sea world, swimming in circles and watching my companions slowly drift away. Swimming was a sport that people loved to hate and the few people that I cherished to swim by my side slowly got tired of how repetitive it was which eliminated any incentive for me to continue it. My commitment slowly decreased until I discovered badminton which emancipated me from the vice grip that swimming had me in. Badminton was a sport that I would have been inherently bad at. My size and pre-existing ankle issues meant that I initially could not cover the court well enough which was a crucial aspect of succeeding in games. Despite this, I was determined to continue improving in badminton and with the help of my friend’s encouragement and frequent visits to the gym, I saw exponential improvement that cemented my place within badminton. My footwork improved, I was more consistent with my shots, I was able to defend better and my offensive strategies improved.

Despite this, there are still areas for development especially with speed, agility, my grip on the racket and improving my accuracy. The biggest thing that I missed out on from my first year of competitive badminton in Grade 10 was playing in organised matches against an opposing team from another school. My only opportunity was playing at UWCSEA Dover and even that competition was fruitful even it even qualified as one. There was a noticeable lack of organisation which left the player’s confused as to when they were able to play. I only played one match of doubles within the 2 hours that I was there.

So this year, I am hoping to gain more experience in competitive badminton, especially with Singles matches which is a bigger challenge for me. My plan for this would be persuading my teammates to play full matches of badminton since the chance to play against other schools is diminished because of COVID-19. Doing this requires collaboration with my teammates because I need their cooperation to implement full-length matches and to receive constructive feedback from them. Gaining more experience will also involve me attending all sessions of badminton, from Dragons Badminton Club to In-season Badminton.