United World College Of South Africa

Lydon Smit (Mahindra College India)
20-08-2010
ASmit1@dominican.co.za

Dear Dr. Msomi

As I prepare to go back to India, as a second year student, I once again realise how lucky I have been to have had this opportunity. I wish to make you and the selection committee very proud this year. Mahindra United World College India has been a life changing experience for me. I have often been asked if I would do it again knowing what I know now and the answer has always been yes. I am eternally grateful for all the opportunities afforded me by the College, the selection committee and the people of India that I have had the pleasure of meeting. Here are my answers to the questions Amanda has asked me.

1. What have you enjoyed the most about your UWC experience?
While away from home on an adventure that to so many seems unreal, the sense of belonging, has been a great companion. With the help of the UWC we, as students, get to experience a life, living with, and in, the company of people that one would never have dreamed of meeting. One thing that we all gain out of an experience like this is earning the title of being known as a global student. The family one forms part of, not only develops your own out-look on things in life; it also encourages a sense of finding one purpose in the world.

2. What sort of challenges have you had to overcome and grow from since going to a UWC?
To many of us, the idea and ideal of the world is far too huge to grasp and imagine, but for us, global students, it’s a part of our daily lives. Life in a place with these ideas is always filled with an unlimited number of opportunities and daily challenges, academically, socially and personally. The UWC has allowed me to face these and make the most of them, while enjoying tackling these challenges in a positive, comfortable, nurturing and welcoming global oriented environment, where growth of oneself is always encouraged. This entire life’s journey that has made me the person I wanted to be yesterday. Parallel to all I have achieved and enjoyed over the past year at a UWC, I often found life in a foreign country hard and sometimes very overwhelming. Explorations have led me to wondrous places in India, which one could only have dreamt of experiencing. Sunrise on the Ganges River and learning to interact with locals on a more down to earth level have all been very exciting experiences. Adaptation to the many cultural differences have been a challenge in the past, but challenges that have influenced me in a way that I would never forget... but learn from..

3. How has UWC impacted your life and future aspirations? (if at all)
What has been an imaginative dream to many has been an achievable dream to me. This experience has allowed me the opportunity to broaden my horizons and look further than many get the chance to do. My growth and understanding of life experiences in the international world has made me aware of what is out there in the Global village and what is really achievable if one just set one’s mind to it. I have always been told that one needs to give to receive, so pay it forward, and this is exactly what I intend to do. I will always remember the wise words of Dr Msomi ..... “Remember....You have to give back”

Thank you once again for the wonderful opportunity.

Sorry for not keeping contact, I have been incredibly busy. I'm not one to boast or complain, but IB is not easy. But neither am I finding it hard to cope. It requires a lot of time and effort. Unlike Grade 12, emphasis is placed on work quality rather than quantity.

My first term here was a bit challenging. Not only because I missed home, but also because I was overwhelmed with work and fear. Yes, I was scared. For some time I was asking myself why I chose to do this course, why I didn't go to University directly after matric. But fortunately I ended up answering my own questions. I reminded myself (and still do) about the big dreams and aspirations I hold. I want to build a life for myself, outside the country of my skull, the land I have always known, and am venturing into the unknown. I am being bold and brave by taking this chance, because I do not know what the future holds for me. But whatever it is, it is very bright and worth chasing after! There is no doubt in my mind that I am destined for great things, and I will forever be grateful to the people that gave me this opportunity (the committee).

For now, I am concentrating on surviving the first year. A lot have done it before me, so there is no sudden pressure. I am taking gigantic steps towards achieving my dreams everyday, and by the end of this year I am

This past year has been an amazing learning experience. I have become so much wiser about the world, the concerns of others and my strengths and weaknesses.

Academically, I was faced with a few challenges and tried my best to overcome them.

CAS and the other extra-mural activities were extremely enjoyable and provided me with valuable insights and reflection time.

Gareth Smit - UWC USA
garethsmit@netactive.co.za
04-07-2009

To attempt to describe an experience as intense, holistically influential, and significant as my two years at the United World College of the American Mid-West in a summarised two paragraphs or even in words alone would be an injustice to the extraordinary impact and role that it has had in my life. Even today, six weeks after graduation every response I attempt when asked what I have been doing in the United States for the past two years feels like an insufficient description of an experience I am still trying to grasp. Perhaps it will take me months, or even years to understand the full impact that this adventure has had on my life, but for now I can confidently say that my UWC experience has given me the opportunity to grow exponentially in every capacity. It has provided me with an entirely new set of tools to adapt the world around me and to move my opinions and actions in a direction of international acceptance, cross cultural understanding and constructive conflict resolution—words that, I am sure, sound rather cliché’ to any member of the UWC global community.

Alas the point of this summary is to provide you, my national committee, with a summary of what my second academic year entailed. Across the board I would say that I became more focused on my academics. Perhaps this is due to my pursuit of wanting to apply to US colleges and music conservatories, perhaps the IB becomes far more demanding in the second year. The fall (1st) semester was by far the most academically stringent of the four I enjoyed at UWC with the added pressure of the Extended Essay, College applications, SATs and all the while keeping my IB mark in line and not falling behind on internal assessment work. In retrospect, now that I have decided to return to Cape Town University for my undergraduate studies, I could perhaps say that I should have balanced my time better in this first semester of my second year - I do, however, feel that that balance was eventually reached in my final semester. I was extremely active in both the music life of the college, as well as in my capacity as school photojournalist providing a diverse archive of school life throughout my two years at UWC-USA. I become a very active member of the HIV/AIDS Peer Educating team run as a community service CAS, as well as training within the Constructive Engagement of Conflict program as a mediator. I was voted in by my peers to represent Africa on the Student Council from Nov 2007 through Nov 2008; and maintained involvement in campus related student issues after my term finished. Academically I endeavoured to always try my best and maintained a steady grade in all my subjects with a distinct improvement in Spanish and Mathematics. While I await my final IB grades, (due to be announced on Monday 6 July) I expect a continuation of the marks I received throughout my second year. While I did not achieve a distinctly high predicted mark, I am adamant that I always tried my best academically while still maintaining an active life within the CASes I committed to and the relationships I shared with my peers.

In summary, I had an amazing two years academically at UWC-USA. I learned to approach academics from a new perspective that penetrated to the core issues needed to understand and appreciate the things I learnt inside and outside of class. I learned an amazing amount about the world through my relationships with others, and even more about myself. Thus it is with ardent gratitude that I thank you, the South African National Committee, for your support in allowing me this extraordinary opportunity. I look forward to joining the National Committee team as we continue to strongly link South Africa to the rest of the United World College global community.

Yours in gratitude

Ayesha Krige - Mahindra College, India
ayesharocksthepartay@hotmail.com

08-09-2009
This past year at UWC I think has been the one in which I have learned the most about myself and what I wanted to take from my UWC experience. I started off the year feeling much more sure of myself than I had when I had left a few months earlier. Over the summer I had thought a lot about the way I wanted to spend my final year at MUWCI and was keen to put all my ponderings into practice.

Although I had been very involved in many aspects of MUWCI life in my first year, I felt that my second year was a time to really explore my own views and opinions about living in a UWC, and to become a more active member of the community. For me this meant getting to know many more people, starting initiatives where possible, becoming more involved in the CAS (or triveni as its called at MUWCI) programme, improving my grades and generally being more outspoken.

The grades part came first as I realised I was performing far below my potential and that I wanted to achieve the grades I knew I could. Throughout the year I dedicated more time to working, which I think paid off in the end as the final results I achieved I think showed my true academic potential.

I also got a chance to do a lot more travelling this year, with project weeks and the winter break. The first project week I decided to do a Community Interaction (CI) project week again (this being optional for second years). I got the chance to stay with a human rights NGO in the state of Tamil Nadu called People’s Watch. Although this was only a week long stay and I didn’t manage to stop all human rights abuses in India in that time, I got to learn a lot about a different part of the country and about an area of law which I had not known much about previously.

The first initiative I started was directing a play for the theatre week. Every year MUWCI has a theatre festival in late February where a few plays are chosen to be produced by students. In my first year I had starred in Grease as a pink lady and loved the rehearsals that went on late into the night and the closeness that develops with the cast and crew. This year I got hold of the play Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead by Tom Stoppard and pitched my idea of producing the play. The three months I spent directing the play late into the night was lots of fun and brought me closer to the entire cast, and at the end of theatre week I was told that my play was the best of all of them!

The other initiative I started was another CI project in a slum called Ravadewadi in the valley below MUWCI. Although there had previously been many different CIs going down to the valley and giving opportunities to children who attended the local schools, we had noticed that a small community of lower caste or “dallit” people had been completely excluded from the educational support programmes that MUWCI was involved in as none of the children of the community attended those schools. An Australian friend of mine had spent time during the summer vacation living with this community and offered to give extra lessons to the children in English. Because of the incredibly positive response from the community when the next year began the two of us started to go down some evenings during the week and try to teach English informally to these children. The Ravadewadi community lives in shacks on the side of the road not very different from those seen in South Africa. When they can the community makes money from collecting rubbish and sorting it, but often they have little to no income. Many of the men have drinking problems and domestic violence seems a way of life. It seems that often the only way that the children knew to interact with others was through violence.

In the beginning the children were incredibly violent toward us and seldom paid attention and we felt that our effort was in vain. But slowly, throughout the months we spent with them, our group grew bigger and we became closer and felt that we had slowly started to improve their English skills and their attitude toward learning. The project was incredibly demanding (sometimes we would meet for hours planning and evaluating our sessions with the children) and took up a lot of our free time as we decided not to turn it into a CI where you could get CAS hours for it, but instead keep it as a project which people who were truly interested in would participate in, not merely to get hours for ones CAS. In the end it turned out to be one of the most meaningful projects I was involved in this year, and one which truly developed my interest in education and in the world of development.

The year was incredible and one I enjoyed thoroughly. Although it was a struggle at times, studying for IB and juggling my various commitments, it was a year I learned a lot about myself and what was important to me.