In this blog post, I will summarize my experiences and reflections, focusing on my academic journey, school activities, examples of compassion, sharing, and collaboration, as well as my career preparation during my time in high school.
Academic Experiences and Reflections
Our school was a pilot school for the smart device education program implemented by the local education office. As a newly established school, it was well-equipped with teaching aids such as electronic whiteboards and projectors, and students could reserve and use the multimedia rooms. During class, teachers conducted smart lessons using electronic whiteboards instead of chalk and traditional blackboards. For example, in science class, chemical molecular formulas drawn by the teacher on an iPad were immediately displayed on the multimedia screen, allowing us to understand the concepts visually.
Smart learning utilizing the school website was also actively promoted. Subject-specific resource libraries were available, allowing students to download materials for study simply by logging in, and subject-specific server bulletin boards were operated where students could post questions about class content. To make the most of these two learning methods, I reserved the multimedia room for three hours a week.
Since reservations for the multimedia room were on a first-come, first-served basis and had to be made a week in advance, I always tried to be the first to arrive. To apply on Monday mornings, I would arrive at school by 7 a.m. that day and wait in line for a reservation. I scheduled my multimedia room sessions for Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, spacing them out by one day to ensure consistent study.
On Mondays, I would download and print the latest subject-specific study materials and worksheets posted in the resource center, and post any questions that had arisen while studying over the weekend on the bulletin board. On Wednesdays, I would ask follow-up questions about difficult parts of the worksheets I had worked on Monday or check the answers to the questions I had posted earlier that week. In addition to the worksheets, I made sure to review all supplementary materials, including video lectures, flashcards, recorded lectures, and links to relevant websites.
The supplementary materials provided outside of class contained content that the teachers considered important, which was a practical help in preparing for my school exams. My greatest achievement was developing a study habit where I regularly downloaded materials, worked through them, posted questions, and addressed my weaknesses through communication with my teachers.
Description of Major School Activities and Reflections
I have always held a critical perspective on social issues, and I joined the drama club as a platform to express these views. Our drama club emphasized creativity by writing our own plays and creating our own scripts, and the themes were beneficial as they addressed topics such as cultural citizenship among youth and efforts to critique and improve societal issues.
My club activities lasted for two years, during which time we performed on stage a total of six times. In my first year, the preparation process—including forming the team, assigning roles, and adjusting acting styles—was lengthy. It took more time to synchronize lines with teammates than to practice a single role, so we met frequently to build camaraderie and foster teamwork.
It took a full year for our team of ten to fully grasp each other’s acting styles and understand one another’s strengths and weaknesses. Toward the end of our sophomore year, ahead of our graduation performance, we decided to take the stage on a larger scale. We chose to participate in a youth theater festival organized by a civic culture movement group and perform a public show. The civic culture movement group aimed to raise civic awareness by presenting the plays prepared by the youth to the public free of charge.
Our team created a play centered on the themes of “kindness, order, and consideration.” I actively contributed ideas based on the inconveniences I had experienced while using public transportation and public facilities in my daily life. I structured scenes depicting unfriendly staff, adults using profanity, and disorderly stations, and then contrasted these with scenes showing friendly staff, adults greeting others, and people maintaining order, thereby emphasizing the attitude of a culturally conscious citizen.
Our performance received positive feedback from both the audience and the judges. While other participating teams attracted attention with flashy and dramatic productions, some were not well-received due to a lack of thematic focus. Even if we were criticized for being somewhat too model-like or proper, we strove to maintain the integrity of our theme. As a result, we won the Silver Prize and received commendations for our club and school. I found the commendations awarded to the school and department more meaningful than individual awards, and I felt a deep sense of pride receiving praise from teachers and fellow students.
Examples of Consideration, Sharing, and Cooperation, and My Reflections
Until my sophomore year of high school, I participated in the drama club during creative elective periods, but upon entering my senior year, I joined the environmental volunteer group. The environmental volunteer group consisted mostly of seniors, and we visited various community facilities and public spaces to carry out cleanup activities. Since the entire senior class participated together, we prioritized order and safety above all else at the volunteer sites.
The most memorable activity was the day we visited a local cultural heritage site to clean it up. Near our school was a temple that attracted many visitors, and many foreign tourists also came for temple stays. As the increase in visitors led to damage to the heritage site and archaeological sites, the local government installed restricted access barriers, and our school planned an environmental cleanup activity for the site.
Before the cleanup, we visited the temple to hear an explanation from the head monk about the temple and the nearby historic site. The activity was conducted by dividing the area into sections for each class and team. Since the temple and historic site were large, it was necessary to assign specific areas to each class. To work systematically, we picked up trash while holding a pay-as-you-throw bag in one hand and a pair of tongs in the other.
Efficiency was greatly improved when teams divided roles and worked together. One team focused on collecting plastic, another on metal or paper, and yet another on non-combustible vinyl; there was also a team responsible for general trash along the lakeshore. Sorting the trash in this way made it easier to separate it into designated volume-based waste bags, allowing us to complete the cleanup safely and efficiently.
Efforts and Preparation Related to Motivation for Application and Career Plans
While in high school, I learned how to convey social messages by creating and performing original plays through my activities in the drama club. I am particularly fond of a play titled “Even If It’s Invisible,” for which I wrote the script from start to finish in the early part of my sophomore year. I wrote this play to criticize intellectual property infringement and the problem of malicious online comments.
The inspiration for this play came from a visit by a youth instructor from the Copyright Protection Committee, who gave a lecture on intellectual property rights at my school. Upon realizing that the casual act of leaving comments on news articles—something I had done without much thought—could cause serious harm to others, I decided to incorporate the message that we must respect the lives and rights of people who may not be visible to us.
While writing the script, I researched legal grounds on the Copyright Protection Committee’s website and examined various case studies. The more cases I read, the more I realized that the scope and effect of intellectual property rights are broader than I had imagined. I was surprised to learn that even music tracks I posted on my blog or short pieces I wrote could become copyright issues. Through this process, I truly came to appreciate how important an asset an individual’s ideas and information are in the information age.
I didn’t want to stop at simply researching and learning on my own; I wanted to raise awareness about the importance of information rights among more young people. Through the play, I vividly portrayed the victims’ suffering and emphasized that upholding copyright ultimately protects ourselves. I also came to realize that the script I wrote is a work protected by my own copyright, so I performed it as part of my club activities to ensure a wide audience could see it.
In the future, after entering college, I plan to refine this work and take the practical step of registering the copyright myself. My understanding of information rights and my efforts to protect creative works have influenced my career path and the direction of my activities, and are leading me to prepare to realize social value based on creativity and self-direction.
