Category: Varun Yogesh Agarwal

Proposed Activities	Components (C/A/S)	Duration with start date and end date (mm/dd/yy)	Learning Outcomes
Learning and developing skills in vocals in AS	Creativity	08/01/15 to 02/07/16	LO 1: Identify own strengths and develop areas for growthLO 2: Demonstrate that challenges have been undertaken, developing new skills in the process LO 3: Demonstrate how to initiate and plan a CAS experience LO 4: Show commitment to and perseverance in CAS experiences LO 5: Demonstrate the skills and recognize the benefits of working collaborativel
Learning Javascript on codecademy	Creativity	01/01/16 to 02/10/16	LO 1: Identify own strengths and develop areas for growthLO 2: Demonstrate that challenges have been undertaken, developing new skills in the process LO 3: Demonstrate how to initiate and plan a CAS experience LO 4: Show commitment to and perseverance in CAS experience LO 7: Recognize and consider the ethics of choices and actions
Gyming	Activity	09/03/15 to 12/01/16	LO 1: Identify own strengths and develop areas for growthLO 2: Demonstrate that challenges have been undertaken, developing new skills in the process LO 4: Show commitment to and perseverance in CAS experiences LO 5: Demonstrate the skills and recognize the benefits of working collaboratively
Fund raising through a food stall	Activity / Service	10/01/15 to 11/13/16	LO 1: Identify own strengths and develop areas for growthLO 2: Demonstrate that challenges have been undertaken, developing new skills in the process LO 3: Demonstrate how to initiate and plan a CAS experience LO 4: Show commitment to and perseverance in CAS experiences LO 5: Demonstrate the skills and recognize the benefits of working collaboratively LO 6: Demonstrate engagement with issues of global significance LO 7: Recognize and consider the ethics of choices and actions
Kabaddi Tournament Project	Activity / Service	08/04/16 to 09/15/16	LO 1: Identify own strengths and develop areas for growthLO 2: Demonstrate that challenges have been undertaken, developing new skills in the process LO 3: Demonstrate how to initiate and plan a CAS experience LO 4: Show commitment to and perseverance in CAS experiences LO 5: Demonstrate the skills and recognize the benefits of working collaboratively LO 6: Demonstrate engagement with issues of global significance LO 7: Recognize and consider the ethics of choices and actions
Plantation	Activity / Service	07/04/16 (For 4 hours)	LO 1: Identify own strengths and develop areas for growthLO 2: Demonstrate that challenges have been undertaken, developing new skills in the process LO 3: Demonstrate how to initiate and plan a CAS experience LO 4: Show commitment to and perseverance in CAS experiences LO 5: Demonstrate the skills and recognize the benefits of working collaboratively LO 6: Demonstrate engagement with issues of global significance LO 7: Recognize and consider the ethics of choices and actions
Participating in Monologue competition	Creativity	08/01/16 to 08/05/16	LO 1: Identify own strengths and develop areas for growthLO 2: Demonstrate that challenges have been undertaken, developing new skills in the process LO 3: Demonstrate how to initiate and plan a CAS experience LO 4: Show commitment to and perseverance in CAS experiences
Acting in teacher’s day film	Creativity / Activity	09/01/16 to 09/05/16	LO 1: Identify own strengths and develop areas for growthLO 2: Demonstrate that challenges have been undertaken, developing new skills in the process LO 4: Show commitment to and perseverance in CAS experiences LO 5: Demonstrate the skills and recognize the benefits of working collaboratively LO 6: Demonstrate engagement with issues of global significance
Teaching grade 5	Creativity / Activity	09/04/15 to 09/05/15	LO 1: Identify own strengths and develop areas for growthLO 2: Demonstrate that challenges have been undertaken, developing new skills in the process LO 4: Show commitment to and perseverance in CAS experiences LO 5: Demonstrate the skills and recognize the benefits of working collaboratively,

On the teacher’s day of 2015, I realized that teaching is not an easy job. I came to this realization while teaching a class of grade 5 to celebrate teacher’s day. My friend Kripa Patel and I had to teach that class for 2 hours. This activity was extremely challenging and also a great learning experience.

The most challenging part of this activity was getting the grade 5 kids to maintain the decorum in the class. The students were not listening to us and were just creating a chaos. Some students were running here and there, some were talking with their friends and others were busy playing games and watching videos on their Chromebooks. In the end to stop all this chaos we had to shout on some of the children to get them to listen to us.

Another challenge that we faced during the activity was not being able to stick to our plan that we had created before we went to teach the class. We had planned to show them a video, however, due to technical difficulties we were not able to do so. Hence, we had to immediately prepare a new course of action, which was to divide the students into two groups and have them debating on multiple activities. This way we were able to not waste their or our time.

Through this activity I realized that I still need to work on my leadership skills and I also learned the importance of contingency planning. With better leadership skills I would have been able to better handle the class and the students and with a proper contingency planning I might have been able to make the learning experience for the students more smooth.

I was really glad that I did this activity with my friend because I do not think I would have alone been able to get the students to listen to me. This activity made me realize how working collaboratively adds more skills to the group and also how problems become so much more easier to solve when they are shared with others.

CAS was overall a very enjoyable learning process for me. It allowed me to learn important life skills such as management and working collaboratively which would have otherwise been difficult to learn.

CAS has created a lot of memories for me throughout the course of these 18 months. The first activity that comes to my mind when I think about CAS is the monologue competition in which I participated. This activity required me to go out of my comfort zone and perform a monologue on stage in front of other students. I believe that this activity really helped me grow by decreasing my stage fright and increasing confidence.

CAS taught me a lot of things. The most significant of which is the importance of planning. It taught me how with proper planning even the most difficult and complex tasks become easy and simple. CAS also taught me how important it was to be a risk taker. Through activities such as the monologue competition I realized taking risks gives opportunity to grow.

By engaging in CAS activities, a lot of times I was required to try new things which made me explore my potential and skills. It helped me realize my strengths and weaknesses. I realized that with a decent amount of practise I am able to perform well on stage and that I am am able to work collaboratively. I even came across some of my weaknesses such as not being punctual and not managing time properly.

Although CAS was extremely fun, I did faced a few challenges while completing it. The most difficult task was taking time out for activities. With all the internal assessments and extended essay I sometimes faced difficulty in allocating the required time for my CAS activities. The most difficult learning outcome for me to achieve was LO6 – “Demonstrate engagement with issues of global significance”. The main reason for this might be because I preferred engaging in activities which relate to local issues rather than global issues.

Even though I am done with CAS, I would still definitely keep doing CAS activities. I would try to apply my learnings from the CAS component to all further activities in which I would engage in.

I am Varun Agarwal and I am 16 years old. I was born in Surat, Gujarat and have been here ever since. I prefer listening rather than talking and writing instead of presenting. It is clear from my preferences that I am an introvert.

Being an introvert, I have always disliked talking and meeting with new people. It has repeatedly held me back in life by the ways of stage-fright and limited interaction with people. These drawbacks have often caused me to wonder how my life would have been if I was an extrovert. Although, I do try to push myself to meet with new people and participate more in stage events, I am still a long way from being an extrovert.

I believe that people usually like what they are good at and are good at what they like. This is probably because of the appreciation you get when you are good at something which makes you start liking it and because if you are passionate about something you would work hard for it and eventually get good at it. Hence, my talents and interests are studying Business Management, playing Football and playing video games such as CS and Watch Dogs.

My outlook on life has always been to spend time on whatever you like as much as you want till the point that it does not harms you in the long run. For example, I should play as much Football as I want till the point that it does not invade my study time and harm me in the long run through academic failure.

There are a lot of things that I wish to learn and a lot of questions that I wish to be answered. At many times I have dreamed of having a machine which could answer all of my questions which are left unanswered such as “Is there extraterrestrial life?”, “Do humans have a purpose on Earth?”, “Would time travel ever be possible?” and many other such questions.

In the month of August and September, I planned and executed my project – Kabaddi Tournament. Kabaddi is a traditional sport of India and we invited the students of our school to participate in this tournament with the aim to make this sport more popular and to also encourage unity among the different grades of our school. I organized this tournament with 2 of my friends – Anay and Nikunj. All three of us were already very interested in Kabaddi and but could not play it considering this sport was not popular and therefore we did not had players to play with. To solve the problem we decided to conduct a Kabaddi Tournament in our school. Another important aim behind this project was to be able to raise funds for providing stationary for the underprivileged students in our locality. This was something that all three of us felt very strong about.

As this sport was new for most of the students of our school, we knew that we would have to put extra efforts in marketing of our tournament. This is why we used multiple methods of marketing including word of mouth, posters and online forms. The main challenge in marketing that we faced was creating the poster and making announcements in classes. As none of us had ever created posters before, creating the poster proved to be challenging for us especially because we had different opinions on every part of the poster such as layout and colors. However, we then decided to draft three posters and then take our friend’s help to finalize one. This part of the marketing helped me learn designing posters which after the event I realized was a very important skill as it really helped us get more participants. Another challenge that we faced was lack of confidence while going to classes and making announcements about our tournament. This was because we were not very good at public speaking. We were very nervous before making the announcements, however after we made announcements in a few classes I got pretty confident and was then able to make better and more convincing announcements in classes. Therefore, it helped me increase my confidence as well. Sending online forms to students of all grades not only helped us promote our tournament but also allowed us to make a list of all willing participants. This was the easiest marketing strategy.

Another challenge that we faced during the tournament was that our theory of knowledge presentation’ consultations timings were clashing with out tournament timings. Therefore, during particular matches not all of the three of us were able to be present. However, because we were working collaboratively we were still able to continue with the tournament as the remaining two of us would monitor the matches. Working collaboratively also helped us reduce our workload as all of the tasks were divided among the three. This resulted in a more smooth and efficient functioning of the event.

Through this activity we were able to move a step towards issues of global significance such as empowering girls to play sports and helping in providing education for the underprivileged. For the teams in our tournament we hadkept it mandatory for the captains to choose at least 2 girls in their team of 5 to encourage girls to participate in the tournament. We even had made special announcements in classes to motivate girls to register for the tournament. I was very happy from the result of this when there were 2-3 girls in each team.

We had kept an entry fees of Rs. 100 per player in the tournament and after the end of the tournament we were able to generate a moderate amount of profit. From this profit, we bought stationery like notebooks and pens for the underprivileged students to encourage them to educate themselves and better their lives.

There was an ethical implication in our event as well for us to be completely dedicated to our aims and reasons for starting this activity in the first place and therefore not keeping any profit for ourselves. I felt really proud of myself and my friends after making a difference in the lives of those less privileged than us.

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During the navratri festival in India, a few students from our school had organized a garba fest in our school. People were invited to come to our school and celebrate navratri together. In the garba fest, me and 2 of my friends had set a stall for cold cocoa and donuts which we sold to the participants and other organizers. Our aim was to raise funds to buy seeds and small plants which we would then plant in our city. After the fest was over, we bought seeds of different kinds and bought plantlings from a local garden shop and planted them in gardens and roadside to help the environment.

The main reason of why me and my friends decided to raise funds for plantation was because a few weeks before the activity we saw trees being cut down from the sidewalks of our area to make space for footpaths. This really got us motivated to protect the environment by planting more trees.

Although, I used to consider that business mangement was my strength, through this activity I came to realize that I still have a lot to learn in the practical application of the knowledge gained in business management. I recognized this weakness through the challenges that we faced while implementing our activity.

The main challenge that we faced was predicting the amount of sales we would have. For the event we had prepared around 100 donuts and 100 glasses of cold cocoa, however, during the event we encountered a shortage of donuts and excess of cold cocoa. Following this challenge, we increased the price of donuts from 30 INR to 50 INR to convert our weakness of low supply into a strength of high revenues. We found out that our customers did not liked the taste of cold cocoa and we had to reduce its price to 10 INR from 30 INR to be able to sell all the cold cocoa we had and not let it go to waste.

Due to the fact that there were 3 of us hosting this stall, we had divided the main work among ourselves. I was handing the financial part, which included getting sponsorship, managing payments from customers and estimating the total costs and revenues. Although, we had initially divided the tasks among ourselves, later we realized that we would have to work collaboratively to achieve the best results. This is why we went in pair for negotiating the terms of the sponsorship. I also helped my friend prepare the donuts to be save time. This activity really helped me realize the benefits of working together.

Ethics was an important part of our activity, especially because we had not decided how much of our profits would we invest for the benefit of environment and how much would we keep to ourselves. We thought we would be able to decide that better after the Garba fest was over, when we would know our profits. In the end we decided to invest all of our earnings because we had not really acquired a significant amount to divide between ourselves and for buying plantlings.

Overall, this activity was a great experience for me. It made me feel good about myself while planting the plantlings in the garden. It also helped me learn the importance of working in a group.

To celebrate teacher’s day in our school, me and my classmates decided to produce a short film to present in front of our teachers on teacher’s day. The film was made with the main idea of “What would have been the case when our teachers were students?”. I was acting in that film and played the role of different teachers. The experience was really great!

This activity helped me learn a lot of things such as the importance of voice modulation and confidence while acting. It also helped me realize that I still have a lot to improve in acting. My friends were really helpful in this activity as they were the ones who taught me all about acting and also gave me tips such as imaging yourself in the character’s shoes while acting etc. I really believe that without my friends I would not have been able to deliver even a satisfactory performance.

The main challenge that we faced while during the shooting of this video was regarding the time and place. Due to the fact that most of us were not very good at directing or acting, we had to spend a lot of time on each scene and eventually we ran out of time available for us in school and had to meet somewhere else for the shooting. This was a huge crisis as it was really tough to find an empty classroom for us where we could conduct the rest of our recording. However, we did found a tuition class which was free for the weekend. So we used that class and finished our film.

Overall, this activity was a really fun experience where I learned a lot of things about acting and directing from my friends.

Although I was never very fond of singing, I still decided to take Vocals for my Arts Special classes. I learned vocals over a course of one year. Sometimes we even had to attend extra classes for vocals, so we had to come early to school and practise in our free slots too. Not only this, near the end of the course, we even had to skip our studying slots, to practice vocals. I felt rejuvenated when I used to take a break from studies and went for my Arts Special classes.

I learned a lot of things related to singing while attending this classes. Particularly I learnt singing at different scales and singing in harmony. Singing also helped me boost my confidence. It even helped me increase my team building skills as the final song that we learnt was to be sung in a group of 5 people.

The final stage of this activity was to perform our song in front of parents, teachers and other students. I was really nervous for this as I had never really performed anything in front of so many people. The one thing that made me felt less nervous was my team as all 5 of us were new to singing and also we were very good friends. Therefore, there was no pressure from my team.

I think this activity was a success for me as our final performance was very well appreciated by the audience and our mentor gave us a positive feedback too. Another reason why this was a success for me is that I developed new skills in this activity which was my goal from the very beginning. I moved out of my comfort zone by performing on stage. Overall this was a great learning experience for me.

 

One of the nature clubs in my city decided to organize an event where they invited people to help plant saplings in an effort to combat climate change and increase air quality in the city. I participated in this event as well. This activity gave me the opportunity to contribute in making the world a greener, healthier, eco-friendly place, for which I would like to acknowledge Nature Club for taking us to Kendriya Vidyalay School in Piplod on the 4th of July, 2016. For this event, all the participants had gathered in the morning and tools and saplings were provided to us by the organization. The main job for us was to plough the ground, plant the saplings in them and add soil back to support the plant.

 

I was very inclined to participate in this activity because of what I have learnt in my environmental system and societies classes. One of our discussions was about how the environment was being destroyed by human activities such as deforestation and this really motivated me to bring a change in our society.

 

Although the activity seemed really simple and easy to me while registration, during the activity I found out how wrong I was. The activity became really challenging because of the unexpected heavy rainfall. Due to the rainfall everything got really muddy and it also made ploughing very difficult. We had to work really hard to get the water out of the holes we created for saplings. That is when I realised about my responsibility of as a citizen of the place I live in. I couldn’t believe I was contributing in making that location greener. This responsibility made me continue planting more saplings one by one, regardless of the rain.

 

To conclude, this event not only helped me realise how big changes happen by making small contribution, but also taught me the skill of planting trees properly. I am grateful to Nature Club as they are involving local people to engage in such significant issues of Surat.

In the first week of August, 2016, I had participated in a monologue competition that was organized in our school. The competition required students to select and prepare a monologue of their choice and then to perform it on stage in front of all the teachers and students of IBDP. For my monologue I choose one of Hamlet’s soliloquy – “Am I a coward?” by William Shakespeare.

 

Before this event, I had never voluntarily registered myself in a competition where I was required to be on stage. This was mainly because of my extreme stage fright and lack of confidence. Ironically, it was because of stage fright that I participated in this competition. I participated because I wanted to get rid of my stage fright and I knew the only way to do that was to participate more and build my confidence. I thought this would help me take a step towards my goal of not being afraid to go on a stage.

 

Not only did this activity helped me reduce my stage fright and build confidence but it also helped me improve my voice modulation. Although, I did not win the competition, the genuine appreciation from my friends and teachers helped me realize that I am not all that bad at drama and stage speaking. If I put more efforts into this activity, I would surely be able to completely get rid of my stage fright and increase my confidence level drastically.

 

This activity proved to be really challenging for me because in the beginning I was really bad at acting and one of the main criterias of this competition was showing emotions matching to that of the character’s. However, from a friend, I got to know that practising in front of the mirror and recording yourself are some very good ways to improve your acting. This is how I overcame my weakness and was able to deliver a pretty impactful monologue.
At the end of the competition I felt really proud of myself as I had done something which I was way out of my comfort zone. It was definitely a great experience for me.