In this blog post, I’ll focus on the academic efforts I made during high school, my participation in school activities, and my experiences with empathy and collaboration.
Writing About My Academic Experiences and Reflections
After starting high school, I developed a habit of reading regularly. I wasn’t particularly fond of reading at first, but my homeroom teacher’s advice inspired me to focus on it. My teacher explained the importance of a portfolio demonstrating self-directed learning—especially for college admissions—and encouraged me to create a reading portfolio as part of that effort. Taking that advice to heart, I decided to consistently maintain a “reading resume” that documented which books I read and how I recorded my thoughts, which led me to write book reviews on a regular basis.
Starting in the second semester of my freshman year, it became mandatory for students to submit a reading log summarizing the books they had read as part of a school assignment. Using the book reviews I had diligently written over time, I created a well-organized reading log and even won an award in the school’s reading log competition. By faithfully completing this assignment, I developed the habit of organizing my notes by category, including book information, plot summaries, my impressions after reading, and new insights gained. In the “Book Information” section, I meticulously listed the title, author(s) and translator(s), publisher, and date of reading so that the order in which I read the books could be easily understood at a glance.
In the “Plot Summary” section, I strove to effectively summarize the book’s overall flow without making it too long. Through this process, I practiced summarizing long texts multiple times and also practiced reinterpreting expressions and words from the text in my own way. I expressed my impressions after reading by adopting creative formats. For example, I shared my thoughts by writing letters to the main character or conducting imaginary interviews, and I wrote down what I had newly learned, the lessons I took away, and any changes in my mindset or resolutions.
As I advanced through the grades, I diversified the ways I expressed my reading activities. I tried new approaches, such as creating reading quizzes, expressing the book’s content through poetry, and writing my own sequels to the stories as if I were the author. My writing skills also improved through exercises where I imagined myself as a character in a novel and adapted a scene into a play or screenplay. In this way, through reading, I cultivated critical thinking and expressive abilities, and deeply realized the importance of perseverance.
Major School Activities and Reflections
During my freshman year of high school, I founded a Christian study group. Once the group was officially established, we quickly set up an operational framework by securing a dedicated space and scheduling regular prayer meetings. I drafted a detailed activity plan and submitted it to the school, which allowed us to receive club funding and lay the groundwork for our activities. Although the group expanded faster than expected as membership gradually grew, this was only possible because of the extensive preparation and effort that went into it before its launch.
At first, I was too busy adjusting to high school and making friends to have the time to start a club right away. However, as the club registration deadline approached—just over two months away—I had to move quickly to launch the group. There were many tasks to handle—filling out the club application, securing a faculty advisor, submitting an activity plan, and collecting membership applications—and I didn’t have enough time to do it all on my own.
So I actively sought help from those around me. After asking around among upperclassmen, I learned that there had been cases in the past where similar groups were formed but later ceased activities; I was able to get practical advice and guidance on the necessary procedures for launching the club from them. I also received a recommendation for a suitable supervising teacher, whom I visited directly for a consultation; thanks to the advice of a teacher who understood religious activities, I became confident that launching the club was feasible. The upperclassmen who were active with me at the time provided necessary supplies, such as devotional booklets and Bibles, which was a great help.
As word of my efforts spread, friends who participated in religious activities on weekends expressed interest in joining, and I collected their membership applications, initially recruiting three members. Over the next month or two, the number of applicants steadily increased, and the group grew to about 30 members, evolving from a small gathering into a formal club. To ensure smooth operations, I divided the group into six sub-groups of five members each and had each sub-group choose a name and establish an activity plan for each semester.
While some groups focused primarily on prayer and others on external events or volunteer work, I ensured autonomy and exercised leadership to sustain the club’s operations.
Writing about examples of consideration, sharing, and cooperation, along with my reflections
Through these small group activities, I consistently participated in religious activities with my friends for over two years. Initially, our activities were limited to praying in the meeting room, but we gradually expanded our scope by incorporating daily devotional study. We made plans to visit a rural village during the school break to do volunteer work and applied for a high school volunteer program run by a local volunteer center. This program provided an opportunity to assist elderly residents in rural areas with farm work while also engaging in evangelism.
The volunteer activity took place over a four-day, three-night schedule, and the first two days were spent adjusting to farm work. Tasks like growing crops or harvesting potatoes and sweet potatoes were physically demanding but relatively manageable; however, there were also unfamiliar tasks, such as setting up large tents and covering them with plastic sheeting to prepare for sudden rain. Since such tasks were difficult to complete without teamwork, my friends and I joined forces to handle them quickly.
We also helped prepare meals by slaughtering chickens at the community chicken coop; since it was my first time handling live chickens, I was a bit flustered. Fortunately, the village elders kindly showed us how to do it, so we were able to prepare meals such as chicken porridge. We divided the tasks among ourselves and worked together to make boiled chicken from a single chicken to serve the elders, and our sincere attitude toward volunteering earned us their praise.
During our volunteer period, we not only provided practical help but also engaged in evangelism. We distributed several Bibles and shared information about church events, which gave us opportunities to converse with the elderly residents. Through this dual effort of volunteering and evangelism, we deeply appreciated the importance of consideration and cooperation, and learned that acting for the sake of others naturally builds trust. Through this experience, I felt that my sense of responsibility and communication skills within the community had grown significantly.
