How to get CAS

CREATIVITY

Regular activities

1. Makeup

When finding things I could do for creativity, I was told by teachers that I could do anything from writing to painting and drawing. While I already did plenty of these things before the IB started, I instantly knew that doing those same things during the IB would be a struggle, since I only found time to draw, paint or write on rare occasions. I began to think of things I did during my day-to-day life that I could in theory try to squeeze in as something similar to those types of activities. When IB1 started, I remember joking to someone about makeup as an activity similar to 'painting your face' and then it hit me... maybe I could do makeup for CAS hours, since that was something that I already was doing every single day! Sure enough, I showed my CAS supervisor a few examples of me doing 'wilder' and more experimental makeup and she loved the idea. She even said that makeup wasn't very different from painting or drawing as an art form, just with a different type of canvas. I began to put an hour or two of makeup per week into my CAS Log Book (this is a mandatory document you need to put all your CAS hours on, given by the teacher). Soon enough, I started racking on a few hours on my CAS. 

I extended doing makeup on myself to doing makeup on others for parties and important events. Not only did I get many CAS hours doing something I really enjoyed doing, but the people that got their makeup done were also very grateful.

2. Art

As most people that do creativity hours are aware, usually drawing and painting are the easiest things to do in your spare time for CAS. As mentioned above, I was already pretty interested in drawing and painting (especially having attended art school in Australia and Finland for a few years), so this was pretty much a given when I began doing CAS. To make the art I did during CAS worth my time (instead of simply being done only for filling out hours), I decided to embark on little projects here and there. An ongoing project I have right now are large landscape drawings that are meant to take up the space above my bed in my bedroom. Because of finding a use for my drawings, I find these hours are much more productive and aim towards the final goal of having a completed project.

3. Cooking

I got the idea of cooking for CAS from my friends (always keeping the IB Academic Honesty Policy at heart lol) and now I spend a few hours each week cooking with friends, for my family and on special occasions (by doing birthday cakes, for example). These activities, especially when cooking with friends, made my CAS so much more enjoyable. I could not only make the act of making food into an event that I could get my other IB friends to come to, but get CAS hours for it, too! 

4. European Youth Parliament (EYP)

The European Youth Parliament is a non-profit organisation that I've been part of for a few years now, and has definitely changed my life. I use my attendance in what are called 'sessions' which take place across Europe for CAS hours, and is by far the most enjoyable and rewarding thing I do for creativity. The different roles I place myself in including being a delegate, chairperson or media team member all require a different set of unique skills, so that's how I use it as a 'creative' activity. I also intertwine my writing of EYP applications to enter different positions in different sessions as creativity... it just goes to show that nearly anything can be used as creativity!

5. Debate club

To fulfill the different Learning Outcomes of doing CAS, I wanted to take part in some sort of school club that would easily fulfill a few outcomes. The debate club is pretty self-explanatory, but each week on a Friday, a group of IB students (including myself of course) holds a little debate session about a controversial topic (one of my favourites in terms of being controversial was about justification for terrorism, so it can get pretty heated as you can imagine).

Random hours 

I take part in any types of random activities I can get my hands on to squeeze in some creativity hours (while having fun of course). This includes:

- taking part in my friend's short movie as an actress

- attending different lectures on a range of topics

- and being involved with HELIMUN (Helsinki Model United Nations).

ACTIVITY

Okay so I should be pretty honest, I suck at my Activity hours. I used to have many sports as hobbies, including soccer, athletics, and even ballet. Because of this, despite popular contrary belief that I hate sports, I like sports but haven't had the need or want to have it as a hobby. However, to cover my activity hours, I do:

- running

- tennis

- soccer

- gym

- for a period of time I took part in the annual Finnish traditional dancing event called 'Vanhat Tanssit', which our whole grade participated in.

SERVICE

Regular activities

1. Tutoring

I originally got a connection through my middle school math teacher to a student who wanted her grades to improve before entering the IB. I ended up helping her, answering her questions, and getting service hours at the same time. Because of this, I got inspired to tutor more people for service hours because I saw them stack up really fast and I found the job pretty enjoyable. Once I ticked over around 10 hours of service for tutoring, I actually began tutoring other students for some pay because I felt like I didn't really need many more hours of tutoring just for service - I could instead use my tutoring skillz to teach others as a side hustle. If I ever run out of service hours though, I could easily ask to stop being paid for my tutoring and then my tutoring service would again be used for service hours. If you have the confidence and knowledge to tutor, I think it's one of the best ways for you to get service hours.

2. Volunteering for the Red Cross

My friend was randomly advertising some sort of vague volunteer work that needed more helpers, and that she'd want me to join her. I got interested (although I was pretty spooked out about it at first), and it definitely paid off. My volunteering now takes place at a sort of daycare for refugee children and it's a super rewarding experience to meet such brave people from all over the world, while collaborating with different volunteers. Once a week, I get to meet wonderful people and ensure my service hours are covered. Furthermore, I was just promoted to a Group Leader, who is in charge of deciding the activities that take place and makes sure the materials are in good supply for those activities.

The bottom line is: if any volunteering opportunity comes up, take it! It's a great way to get service hours without feeling like you're doing something just because you HAVE to. You grow as a person from volunteering with organisations such as the Red Cross, and that's something everyone should experience!


3. Socialising with cats

Did you know that your local cat shelter is in desperate need of extra pairs of hands to socialise their cats? Well, if you didn't know, cat shelters are filled to the brim with cats from all walks of life that the shelter workers just don't have enough time to handle each one of them. In the long-term, this means that the cats might not be fit to be given to a new owner, simply because it doesn't like interacting with people and might lash out. There's a fix for this: you can volunteer at cat shelters, play with some cute cats, and get some CAS out of it!

Random activities:

As stated before in the 'creativity' section, I like to take advantage of random things that come up. For my service hours, this includes:

- taking pictures at the graduation ceremony of last year's IB students from my school

- taking part in an interview for a course they recently introduced to my school

- advertising EYP in different schools in the EYP School Tour (EYP:n Koulukiertue)

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