From the gallery to the podium: My IB Experience at
GSIS
Memories
take me back to 2008 when I was filled with fear and anxiety, apprehension and
thrill. Was I messing up my career by taking IB? Shouldn’t I be taking up a
time-tested, conventional board? If I do not do well in my boards how will I
face my friends and relatives back home? Today, however, having covered this
small distance from the gallery to the podium, I can proudly claim that
whatever I achieved is because of my doing IB at GSIS (Good Shepherd
International School, Ootacamund, Centre Number: 1350). Anything else than my
level of achievement could have been several notches lower: this is so not only
for me but for a whole lot of my batchmates as all of us have joined the top
colleges in the world whether to pursue Engineering, Arts, Commerce or BBA.
My
scores, particularly in the Physics, Chemistry, Mathematics HL combination,
enabled me to get into National University of Singapore (NUS) for my
Engineering. NUS is ranked 9th in the world as an Engineering
University whereas the IITs (Indian Institutes of Technology, India’s best
Engineering colleges) are ranked 47th to 300th in the
world. For NUS admission, the cut off marks for IB students was 40 points
whereas for the students who had cleared Grade 12 of other boards the cut off
was 98%. Moreover, at GSIS, our
curriculum is so planned that each one has access to activities that will
enable the fulfilment of even the core components of the IB Diploma Programme,
the CAS programme, in particular. All of us Shepherdians have a number of
certificates by the time we leave school: of the Duke of Edinburgh Award Scheme
(International Award of Young People), those from the Trinity College of Music,
London, from the Rotaract Club, for being in the Symphony and Brass/Pipe band, for
our mountaineering activities and being part of the Sea Cadet Corp. I just had
to be in GSIS and merely go through the motions my teachers were taking me
through during the IB Diploma Programme to get a seat at NUS.
I
was in Grade 7 when I joined Good Shepherd International School, a fully
residential, co-educational school where students from forty different
countries stay under one roof (quite a big roof, I daresay). I was in a
dormitory of about fifty students and it was in a world in itself. It made me
realize that I had some qualities which would make my friends comfortable. Soon
I found myself as a counsellor of sorts for them, helping them during the
moments of their emotional depression. I came to understand what a child goes
through when his or her parents are divorced, when they are not able to keep up
to their parents’ expectations, when they have to leave school due to financial
crisis or when they have been offended by a teacher or a friend.
As
a prefect of my house I had the responsibility of ensuring discipline among the
students. Later, as a house captain, I had to motivate around 250 students to
excel in academic and co-curricular activities. I had to find participants for
each competition which made me overcome my prejudices and choose the best team
to represent my house. I also learnt to handle diplomatically the ones who
could not make it to the team and motivate them to keep trying for other
opportunities.
All
these experiences culminated in one unique experience that I underwent while
pursuing the IB Diploma: I got the opportunity to do community service as part
of my attempt to be awarded the gold medal of the Duke of Edinburgh Award
Scheme. The experience I had during this time changed my outlook towards life.
I saw the darker side of reality and realized how fortunate most of us are. I
stayed for five days in a village as part of the community service activity and
this experience was an eye opener. During the stay, some of my schoolmates and
I had to help the villagers with food, clothing, medication, the basic
education of health and hygiene and by digging drains and repairing roads. After
having led a moderately comfortable life, all of a sudden, my attention was
drawn towards the ignored and the powerless. That worn-out shoes, threadbare or
torn clothes and basic edibles could be a source of joy to anyone was quite a
revelation. I cried at my ignorance, materialistic ambitions and misplaced
priorities of life. However, I learnt the importance of overcoming scepticism
and taking a first step. Soon I was empowered with the knowledge and
determination to transform this section of our society. As personal
achievements took a backseat, their expressions of gratitude and blessings
remain embedded in my memory. The most important realization was that I had the
strength to make a difference in someone else’s life even if it was
inconsequential or trivial.
I
am now passionate about striving to find workable, beneficial and efficient
solutions to the problems of the poor and needy. I have nurtured dreams of
touching their lives and providing them with basic survival facilities. My
determination should not be diluted with the passage of time and the advent of
worldly temptations as I would like to keep my Dare-Dream-Do attitude alive.
Empowered with my passion and value system I want to create a road map for
attaining my vision and use technology for the management of garbage, water,
transport and the environment as a whole and provide overall health care and
create a general feeling of well being. I have come to believe that if at all
there is something honourable in experience, it is seeing things through the
prism of morality and idealism. Thanks to GSIS and IB, for three years now, the
vision and mission of my life has been to develop the capacity to use my
education and experience to build a happy, healthy and ethical society.
By Ankshita Prasad,
Topper of the 2010 batch,
Good Shepherd International School,
Ootacamund,
Now pursuing Bio-Engineering at
The National University of Singapore.
