Personal Awareness and Responsibility

Strengths

I can set goals, regulate my emotions and persevere in difficult situations.

Although I would say I am emotionally stable and strong overall, I struggle to cope with intense
stress and anxiety sometimes. However, I have become much better at dealing with moments
when I am not fully relaxed through experience and practice over time. For example, sometimes
I get stressed out while at work, especially when I have a lot going on outside of work, but I
know that I must overcome this stress and have learned to put on a smile and greet the next
customer or complete whatever task I am assigned while trying to not let stress and anxiety
severely affect me. Being anxious about something I can’t deal with at the moment is pointless,
and I think it is important to be able to understand this to stay calm and be able to focus on the
current task at hand.

I am learning to take care of myself.

Over the past couple years, I have made huge progress in learning how to take care of myself. I
have noticed significant improvements in how I feel and my health because of this. One of the
things I started doing at the beginning of grade 11 is waking up earlier, taking a shower and
eating breakfast every morning before school, which has made me feel much more relaxed and
energized for the day. I also started drinking more water, eating healthier, and working out, all of
which have resulted in improved physical health. In addition to the physical benefits, the simple
action of taking care of myself makes me feel more confident and calmer, knowing that I am
helping better myself.

Weakness

I can express my needs and seek help when needed.

Sometimes I have a hard time figuring out what I need to help me succeed. In grade 11, my IB
math course was very challenging for me, and I wasn’t getting very good marks, but I refused to
get help. My mom kept offering to get a tutor for me and every time I would just say that I can
learn math by myself and just need to put more time into practicing – I never really did until final
exams came up. In the end I got a decent mark for math because of all the work I put in just
before the exams, but I definitely do not want to repeat this again. This year I have bought access
to a website that specializes in preparation and practice for IB math and so far, have been using it
to study for math, which I am proud of.

Social Responsibility

Strengths

I am aware of my community and environment and work independently and collaboratively for
the benefit of others.
Whether I am at work, school, or just in my community, I try my best to help others. When I am
at work it is my main job to ensure customers have the smoothest and most reliable experience at
the store. An example of this is anytime a customer asks me for assistance, I will do my best to
figure out how to best help them. I will lead them to the correct shelf if looking for a specific
product or consult a manager for any inquires, as long as I am not occupied with completing a
higher priority task.

I have positive peer and intergenerational relationships.

I believe having positive relationships with other people is a key component of being happy and
successful. I surround myself with people that I enjoy being around and try to avoid spending
much time or establishing relationships with people that may not contribute positively to my life.
However, I do my best to get along with everyone and avoid any unnecessary conflicts because
that makes life so much easier and simpler.

Weakness

I value diversity, defend human rights, advocate for others, and act ethically in all my
interactions, including online.

I believe that diversity and human rights are a crucial part of the world we live in and should be
defended by the government and by other members of society. Though I always try to act as
ethically as possible, I think that I am too passive when it comes to taking action to contribute to
social causes. I should educate myself more about these causes and try to help out when I notice
there may be issues.

Critical Thinking

Strengths

I can analyze and critique my work and my learning.

I often try to look back at the work I have completed or learning that I have done and figure out
what I could have improved or done differently. For example, when I look back at my overall
schoolwork habits during eleventh grade, I realize that I was being inefficient and not prioritizing
my learning as much as I could have, something I am working very hard at improving this year –
successfully so far.

I can analyze and make defensible judgements, draw conclusions and consider a variety of
perspectives.

Having the scope to acknowledge and understand different perspectives is key to making well
informed judgements and conclusions. I am open to hearing new ideas and try not to judge them,
as I understand that ideas and opinions are formed by people’s unique experiences. I used to get
into arguments with my family over political topics when politics and social issues first really
spiked my interest in 2020. It made me really upset at times to see my family disagree with so
many things that I believed in but have since learned so much new information and have
developed a much deeper understanding of different views and why these views might be held
by people. By allowing myself to analyze diverging views and comprehend them I have become
more neutral and well-rounded in my views while still maintaining my personal perspectives,
judgements, and conclusions. I also realized the importance of being able to disagree with your
family but be able to get along and have constructive, educated, and calm discussions.

Weakness

I can assess my progress.

I struggle to evaluate my progress across different areas sometimes and find that I am often
overconfident, especially in my ability to do many tasks in a short amount of time. Though I
have made immense progress in my educational motivation and time management throughout
grade eleven and now in grade twelve, I sometimes face difficulty with figuring out how much I
have really progressed and to not underestimate the challenges I may face and lack proper
planning for. It’s important to track progress in whatever is being accomplished because progress
does not just stay and keep progressing on its own but rather needs to be upheld and pushed to
progress further, therefore I must work hard to ensure I don’t lose progress, in whatever I am
trying to achieve.

Creative Thinking

Strengths

I can persevere and understand that failure can be productive.

I deal with anxiety and OCD thoughts sometimes which can prove to be challenging, but in the
end, I always persevere and get through the struggles. Sometimes I am feeling mentally relaxed
but then start getting anxiety and other thoughts, letting them control my mind and start to feel so
stressed out because I feel that I failed and allowed myself to reach this point. I have learned to
understand that it is okay to fail and putting energy into improving for next time and calming
myself down in the moment rather than feeling bad about failing is more productive.

I can take my ideas, evaluate, develop, and refine them and make something productive out of
them.

I am getting better at shaping my ideas and turning them into reality. In English, I have improved
my ability to organize my ideas prior to starting an in class write so I will be able to focus more
on presenting these ideas rather than having to come up with them as I write at the risk of writing
an unorganized essay. I also sometimes struggled with my ability to formulate ideas into words
but now I have had more practice and have an easier time with this.

Weakness
I can create new and unique ideas that may provide new perspectives that influence how people
think about topics.

I feel that I do not think outside of the box as often as I should, which would help me come up
with more unique and possibly influential ideas. While I have become better at coming up with
original ideas but often just decide not to put in the effort into thinking of something new and
instead stick with established ideas. For my Capstone project, I am hoping to come up with
something authentic and interesting so that it will be an accurate portrayal of my strengths and
interests.

Communication

Strengths

I can reflect on the processes of learning and share what I have learned.

I like going back to look at work that I previously completed to review information and reflect
on the success of my learning process. A lot of times I can recognize how I could have improved
the process that I used to learn, by being more efficient with my time for example. I like sharing
information that I find interesting with my family after I learn it in class, which also helps me
retain and understand the information better.

I can listen, learn to contribute meaningfully to discussion and debate, consider different
perspectives, and build consensus.

It is important to understand differing perspectives while listening to others and when adding
input to a discussion in order to attempt to establish an educated consensus. When I am having a
conversation or listening to other people’s ideas, I really like hearing new thoughts that may
challenge what I think and can change my own perspectives. When I am trying to convince
someone of something or simply am expressing a new idea or thought to them, I try to consider
their perspective and why they may have this view so I can present my idea in a way that will be
more appealing to them.

Weakness

I can work with other students to plan, inquire, and solve problems.

I can collaborate well with other students in school to work on assignments and get things done
in an efficient and organized manner. I like brainstorming with other people so I can hear their
ideas and share my own so that we can all expand our thinking process, but sometimes I struggle
with some aspects of working with others. At the beginning of almost every math class we are
arranged into small groups to do an “investigation”, where we must work together to understand
an unfamiliar math concept or problem related to the day’s math lesson, putting our critical
thinking to the test. However, I find myself not contributing much to these activities sometimes
because I may not want to say something incorrect or just don’t think I’ll be able to contribute
something meaningful and feel awkward. I think it is important that I try to be a bigger part of
these regardless, for my group’s and my educational benefit, which so far, I have been doing this
year to a greater extent than last year.

Personal and Cultural Identity

Strengths

I understand that culture is a broad concept that includes things like my geographic region,
nationality, sex/gender, age, ethnicity, sexuality, language, and religion.

Culture is such a major part of human identity and is defined by so many aspects of one’s life
and history. I show my understanding of this through my tolerance and acceptance of people
from a diverse range of backgrounds that shape who they are. Culture brings people together,
both from similarities and differences. For example, my family, including me speaks English and
Russian, allowing me to make cultural connections with other people that speak Russian or have
ties to my culture. However, differences in cultures can also bring people together when
communicating and learning more about each other’s culture and how it ties into their identity.

I understand what is important to me.

I really value my physical and mental health, relationships, and education/career, and try my best
to balance these values. I always ensure I have enough time for myself to relax and take care of
myself, while also needing to go to school, work and complete schoolwork at home. I also make
sure to balance my social life so that I can have fun and take a break from other tasks. When I
have a lot of schoolwork to do, I recognize the importance of this and can make changes to my
routine and schedule to prioritize this, like asking to leave work early or get the day off if
absolutely necessary.

Weakness

I understand how to use my strengths and abilities to my advantage, and I can explain how I use
them to contribute to my community.

In general, I know what my strengths and weaknesses are, but I do not spend enough time
thinking how I can improve them and figure out how I can maximize their benefit to me. I know
that one of my strengths is putting in a lot of effort into my schoolwork and one of my biggest
weaknesses is time management. Knowing this, I should plan to give myself more time to do my
work and start assignments earlier. The result should be me getting more assignments completed
on time, while being able to spend more time putting in effort and hopefully further increasing
my marks and learning potential.