I am passionate about psychology, so I decided to take the initiative to be the co-president of my school’s psychology club as the then-presidents were graduating from school. Taking the responsibility of being the co-president included planning and conducting club sessions, coordinating with my co-president, supervisor and club members among others.

LO1 – Identify own strengths and develop areas for growth

My strengths included research skills, time management and commitment. I ensured to pitch and discuss ideas with my partner (i.e. co-president) on time. My research skills helped me find variety of information on a topic. Time management helped us finish research and make ppts on time. My weaknesses were presentation skills and communicating with my partner. My communication skills and confidence aren’t great because of which I struggled in presentation while conducting club sessions and my poor confidence also affected my communication with my partner. However, with practice and over time, I’m getting better at communication and presentation.

LO2 – Demonstrate that challenges have been undertaken, developing new skills in the process

A major challenge was that since we were starting the club after almost a year, the communication with and the interest of the old members had fallen. This led to low attendance. We tried to tackle this by personally messaging members to encourage them to attend sessions. We asked them what topics they would like to discuss, what timings they would prefer and tried to organise guest session. However, our efforts didn’t work much which also discouraged us in our efforts to continue the club as it was difficult to gauge how to interest the members. However, we were able to conduct two sessions in the couple months before summer vacation when we had taken this responsibility.

LO3 – Demonstrate how to initiate and plan a CAS experience

This experience required a lot of planning and brainstorming regarding what topics to conduct sessions on, planning of future sessions, engaging and encouraging club members, hopeful brainstorming of activities for in-person club sessions instead of the online ones we were conducting, guest sessions, etc. I really enjoyed the planning aspect because of my love for psychology as well as organisation. What was challenging was planning and conducting the sessions and activities in such a way that the club members were engaged and interested. Our supervisor reviewed and helped us make our sessions engaging which was quite a challenge.

LO4 – Show commitment to and perseverance in CAS experiences

It required commitment and perseverance because this was a new and difficult experience. What made it the most difficult to persevere was my difficulty in conducting the session which led to self-doubt in my commitment to this experience. However, this challenge allowed me the opportunity for growth and helped improve my presentation skills and I became aware of a weakness that I could further work on.

LO5 – Demonstrate skills and benefits of working collaboratively

This experience required collaboration as I had to work as the club’s co-presidents. This was a little challenging as I felt less confident in my ideas and skills, however my passion for psychology encouraged me to work with my CAS partner. Although challenging, I discussed my ideas with my partner for art therapy, a fun survey and guest session among others. Collaborating in this experience was beneficial for me as it helped me learn confidence and presentation skills from my partner. We also worked with our supervisor to ensure our work was accurate and of quality. Working with our supervisor helped me gain valuable knowledge about psychology as well as planning and conducting sessions.

LO6 – engagement with issues of global significance

In the few sessions we conducted, we engaged with issues of global significance as such as addiction and human relationships. Addiction is prevalent globally as a social as well as a mental health issue. We discussed in our session the different perspectives to look at addiction such as physiological and psychological perspectives and the risk and protective factors that result from the varied aspects of one’s life. Further, the topic of human relationships allowed us to discuss topics such as role of self esteem, familiarity, self-disclosure, etc on forming relationships and choosing partners. We also discussed how movies promote unhealthy relationships and about love languages. Since relationships are a significant part our lives, understanding the psychology and theories behind it were of importance. These two topics helped us discuss important topics and raise awareness.

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