Maia Abroad: UWC Waterford

After our orientation week of fun icebreaker activities and exploring Mbabane, things have gotten more intense. This week is Shopping Week – where we hear from various teachers about their respective courses. This week, we pick the six courses that we’ll be taking for the next two years. Plenty has been written about the IB, but I’ll give you a brief overview. For the two years of the program, you take six courses from six ‘streams’ – three at a higher level, and three at a standard level. The streams are Maths, Sciences, Humanities, Arts, English, and Language. This is one of the many things that distinguish an IB diploma from a typical diploma. At this age, students have typically started leaning towards the arts, or towards STEM. For IB, a student must remain well-rounded. We also do Theory of Knowledge (more on that below) and CAS (or Creativity, Activity, and Service.) This week is focused on presentations from various teachers, and we’ve been hearing about syllabuses, c...

Orientation week is coming to a close, and I've found myself with a free hour. This past week has been exhilarating, nerve wracking, and exhausting. The days have been filled with ice breaker activities - (one especially memorable one involved directing your blind folded teammates through an obstacle course by giving them left and right directions,) speeches from teachers - (I especially liked the Sex, Drugs, and Water talk. It's still not entirely clear why water was part of that talk,) and long nights of talking. We also made a trip to a game reserve, a traditional Swazi village, and the eSwatini glass factory. I've made friends faster than I thought possible, and sometimes I have to remind myself that I've only been here a week, and don't actually know these people yet. It feels like we've been here for months already, but the days still feel very long. I think everyone is still settling in and testing the waters, but it's already a very close gro...

When I arrived in Johannesburg after two nine hour flights and a twelve hour layover, damp heat enveloped me like a hug. My hair stuck to my back, my feet hurt, and I hadn't brushed my teeth, but I'd made it to the correct continent. As I made it to the arrivals terminal, I scanned the placards that people were holding, hoping to see WK. Just as I was starting to get nervous, I spotted a cluster of teenagers at the back of the hall with massive banner. Introductions happened quickly, with names and countries and journey times flying around. From time to time people would repeat their names, sounding it out for other students who squinted in confusion. There were hugs and smiles, and a palpable air of excitement and nerves. The heat was oppressive , but I had been in chilly Vancouver for months, and it felt like sinking into a warm bath. The fifty odd students piled aboard - we were so crowded for space that we had to put suitcases halfway down the aisles, and pile the bac...

I always thought one day I would become a person whose possessions are organized. I’m very prepared in other parts of my life – my calendar has reminders and events for two years in the future, my skin-care regime is down to an art form, my hard-drive has folders and sub-folders and alphabetized categories. I guess I thought the other stuff would sneak up on me, and one day I would wake up and my suitcases would be neatly packed, with clothes arranged by colour and fabric. It’s possible that I was slightly naïve. A few days ago I woke up and decided that it was the day to pack. My packing mostly consisted of pulling out the entire contents of my closest, staring at it for a while, and then shoveling the majority of it into a wheeled duffel bag. I accomplished the rest of the packing by wandering vaguely around my room and picking up objects that would either be lobbed into another suitcase or shoved under my bed. This is what my room currently looks like. It'...

Happy New Year! In my last post, I wrote about the minutiae of packing, and how simple things seemed stressful. I wanted to acknowledge the fact that those thoughts come from a place of privilege – from a background where I’m able to worry about facewash and sheets instead of what I’ll do over school breaks; if I can afford to go home, and if I can’t, where I can stay. Although I’ve been working more than full time for the past eight months to pay for tuition, I also come from a background where I don’t have to worry too much about whether I’ll be able to afford medical care, running shoes, or shampoo. The movement at the heart of UWC is bringing together diverse people from all different backgrounds. This means that a large number of students are on full scholarships. I’m lucky enough to come from a family where although I have to work hard in order to make this work, we are able to make it work, and I don’t have to worry too much about what my family is sacrificing in o...

It turns out that planning to pack your life into two suitcases and planning to move halfway around the world requires more work than I initially anticipated. I have a cluster of neon-orange post-it notes on my wall, each with a task I have to complete before I leave Vancouver on January 12 th . Every time I finish one, I pull it off the wall and breathe a tiny sigh of relief. Throwing out the post-it note is bliss. Some are small things – ordering sheets for my dorm room. Others require a little more work – passport renewals, getting prescriptions for six months of a medication, and explaining to assorted friends and family why I’m moving away, where I’m going, and why on earth I think it’s a good idea. I feel like I’m constantly thinking about the small things and forgetting the bigger picture. Will there be a chance to buy shampoo when I arrive? Will I manage with the travel size bottles or should I figure out a way to wrangle a bigger size into my suitcase? I thin...

I know I’ve written about applying to UWC, but with applications opening tomorrow, I wanted to get a bit deeper into this topic. The written application is one of the longest that you’ll probably ever have to do – I believe it’s about six pages long, excluding things like parental permission and medical history. The written application really helped me consolidate my own feelings about UWC. The insightful questions let me know that if I was accepted, I would be going to a school where students are engaged and thoughtful about the world around them. It also gave me a chance to form some of my own opinions that I might not have thought too hard about before. One question asked what I saw as the most pressing issue my region faced. I said the housing crisis, and listed some ways that I might combat it. During the interview, one of the alumni brought up my answer. He was an urban planner and wanted to discuss my solutions. While writing your application, take your time. Y...