Roughly a month ago, I was presented with the opportunity to lead the activity alongside Max. For me, this is huge, as it will mean I’ll have to put all my leadership and teaching skills to the use. My Java skills aren’t very good, so being able to gain the confidence of the activity leaders pleases me a lot.

I was quick to say yes, as an opportunity like this doesn’t come along every day. While it is a bit of a stretch for me, I’ll make sure to make it work over the coming school year, with projects, slides, and maybe even a bit of gaming to spice up the activity and make it interesting for everyone (from Grade 9 to Grade 12).

During the October break, we were able to meet lots of the new students who were stuck in remote learning, due to the cancellation of many flights and the mandatory 14-day quarantine that many students had to pass.

The Student Voice leaders planned an orientation for the new students, in which I took part in. It was a great experience being able to meet and talk with students who have come from essentially, every corner of the world. Being a group leader, I was responsible for giving a tour around the campus, showing all the important facilities that they need to know about.

When it was my turn to run the game stations near the sports halls, it was really fun leading the blindfold run, in which I also had to use a bit of my leadership skills to run the station. Finally, having lunch with the new students really gave me some time to talk to them about school life, teachers, and anything in between. I will definitely be signing up for another orientation in the future

Coming to the last days of the year, I have seen a significant improvement in my playing in the band and out of it in ITP. I feel thaI was able to grow as a musician in just the 5 months of Jazz Band we had, as we were able to deal with all the challenges that presented us. Whether technical or mechanical, the band and I were able to keep working to produce our videos for Wavelengths.

This, has been my proudest achievement in Jazz Band so far, and I hope that I can keep developing what I’ve learnt so far and apply it to later pieces that we may learn for another assembly in March. Although I have been learning, I still have ways to go with some of the technique I play with, and with sufficient practice and playing, hopefully I’ll be able to do some solos later down the line 🙂

Rounding off my first term of Tech Tinkers, I have definitely seen our impact in the local community with our first batch of donations to St John’s elderly care facility, as well as even more donations which have come in through the e-waste recycling box.

This really made me think on the actions that the people took to consciously place their working (but old0 electronics in the e-waste bin. For some of the products that have come by us, there are items that can be sold for $50-$200, but instead, they decide to give it to us for a chance of a new life in someone else’s hands. At UWC, I believe that we’re trained to look out for others (in and out of our community) to a point where we start re-evaluating our choices of selling or buying products from around the world. UWC made a strong push towards recycling and composting, and I think that has spread across the community. This concept has now arrived at Tech Tinkers, where we deal with all the recycling needed to get phones, laptops, and desktops back up to running order so they can be used by others in the local Singaporean community.

The activity Art of Computer Programming being run by Akshat and Arjun (Grade 12 students), has been an intense and interesting learning experience, as I have been grasping the concepts of programming in Java in CompSci, and learning how to use Eclipse. The activity has been a good look into the fundamental concepts of Java, and seeing the full extent of the programming language.

I’ve had to learn Java pretty much Ab-initio, with no experience before hand. This was a huge challenge for me, as I had no help at all when doing most of the challenges set by the leaders, so it was a challenging but fun experience.

I’ll definitely keep learning Java both in class, and in the activity. I hope to improve my programming skills to a point where I’m able to make simple programs, but that’ll come with time and practice, and more learning from my activity leaders.

As with ITP, I’ve been doing Jazz Band since Grade 6, and Jazz Band has always been an activity where collaboration has been key. Working with players who have different skill sets can present itself as a challenge, but I believe the end result of us playing onstage in front of 600 people is the most rewarding result of the challenge.

Working together in Jazz Band is different from collaboration in other subjects, as it required me to listen to others and adjust my timing and playing style accordingly. Due to COVID-19, we’ve had to work in sections, meaning that all the Saxes played together, clarinets together and so on. Working in smaller groups has placed and even more important role in collaboration, as slacking off is no longer an option, and a 100% effort from all team members is required to succeed in playing any piece that our band leader may hand out to us. For the time being, working in small groups is something that will carry on for the foreseeable future, and I’ll gladly be putting in my best in group efforts like these.

the ITP program has been an ongoing learning experience since I was in Grade 6. I’ve played the Sax ever since I was in grade 5, and since then, I have worked on my skills throughout Middle School and IGCSE to get to the point where I’m at now. ITP has always been about pushing my limits of playing and to learn new techniques and skill with every day I practice, or play in Jazz Band. My teacher, Mr. Haigh has put in a monumental amount of effort into helping me prepare for trinity tests, and as well as practicing for ITP night and the countless Jazz Band performances.

ITP will be an area which I will continue to develop new techniques and other skills, and I’ll always be looking for areas in which I can develop my playing skills in.

Student Voice is an activity that I was used to doing from last year, as I was a member of SV for the first term of Grade 10. All I can say is that this year, SV is much more involved and the effort required to ensure the smooth running of the service has to be high. The system of command in SV is much more organised now, with involvement from a chair and a vice chair, which are yet to be elected.

For the past couple of weeks, I’ve been on top of my duties as a SV representative for my class, and I have absolutely enjoyed the work which comes with it. Planning small scale events for my mentor class are things that I may have to do later on down the line, but I will happily do so. I personally enjoy small-scale planning and organization of events, so I feel that I’ll be right in place at SV. Although, it will be a big effort to keep up to date with all the grade’s events, so it’ll be continuous strides on my end to ensure I can still be an effective representative.

A couple weeks ago I started my service journey with Tech Tinkers, and I’ve felt really engaged and committed to the goal of  the service, which is to upcycle old technology which has been given to us, which the service will later donate to selected service partners around Singapore.

My first session with Techtinkers was hectic, although I did enjoy the ambiance. I got a first-hand look into the day to day running of the service, as well as what the service actually entails. I was assigned to help get Linux running on old HP desktops which were donated by an enterprise. As well as putting myself in the “spotlight” and doing something I’ve never done before, I think it was a great learning experience for me, as I learnt about a computer’s BIOS and the installation of an operating system.

I’m really looking forward to continuing with Tech Tinkers throughout Grade 11, as it’s a service which I really enjoy collaborating in. My passion for technology and service coming together is not something that is normally seen, so I’m committed to putting 110% for the service.