Polina Blinova, Grade 11
UWC Maastricht
“UWC makes education a force to unite people, nations and cultures for peace and a sustainable future.”
If this phrase is not engraved in your memory as much as it is engraved in mine, then you probably did not spend enough time surrounded by people trying to live up to this mission statement. Before I embarked on my journey at UWCM, I made sure that I could recall this sentence at any time of day - courtesy of my older brother who graduated from UWCiM, as I was absolutely certain that anyone who, in one way or another, ended up at one of the colleges did the same. Well, as it turns out, we all treat our mission and values differently, and it is not necessarily a bad thing.
During my first lunch at a new school, I found myself looking at one of our already former second years standing up on the table. He was calling for everyone’s attention, and, as a matter of fact, it was of frequent occurrence that announcements of different sorts were made in this way, so nothing to be surprised at. The guy notified us that it is in UWCM’s traditions to pronounce the mission statement all together at least once a day. How wonderful that probably all of us know it by heart at this point, is what I thought. However, the fact that a lot of people were not confident in the exact wording of the phrase that is considered the overall goal of the movement we all found ourselves in, astonished me. Indeed, many of my co-years were not as eager to repeat after our second years as I was. Nonetheless, this went on for about a week or two, and usually at a completely unpredictable moment of the day, one of the DP2s called on all of us to verify that we remembered the mission statement. Gradually we stopped doing that, and no-one seemed to mind that much. I forgot about all of that amidst the regular fluster of the IB and UWC experience, although, one day, this topic came up in discussion with my DP2 roommate. “You know this was all a big joke, right?” - she said, and I casually assured her that I was not stupid and obviously was aware of that.
Yet it was undeniably naive of me to expect everyone at UWC to know all our values by heart because, as I later realized, we are all diverse in not only our backgrounds and countries we come from but also in our own stories that lead us to study at UWCM. We all came here with different purposes, and we all have various interpretations of what is expected of a UWC student. My school has a big day-student community, and before actually arriving in the Netherlands, I thought that the only way to get into one of the UWCs was either through the National Committee or through the Global Selection program. Evidently, most people have absolutely different experiences with the UWC selection or whatnot, even when coming from the same country. You can spend your entire life dreaming about coming to this place and not even be allowed to choose where you will be allocated to by your NC, or you can find yourself directly applying to one of the schools at the last minute.
All of this is valid, and this is the beauty of the UWC movement - our backgrounds, views, and perspectives vary; what also differs but is, nevertheless, as equally important is why we choose or do not choose to come here in the first place. It contributes to UWCs being the schools they are today, and is, at least for me, an undoubtedly crucial facet of our lives here.
If this phrase is not engraved in your memory as much as it is engraved in mine, then you probably did not spend enough time surrounded by people trying to live up to this mission statement. Before I embarked on my journey at UWCM, I made sure that I could recall this sentence at any time of day - courtesy of my older brother who graduated from UWCiM, as I was absolutely certain that anyone who, in one way or another, ended up at one of the colleges did the same. Well, as it turns out, we all treat our mission and values differently, and it is not necessarily a bad thing.
During my first lunch at a new school, I found myself looking at one of our already former second years standing up on the table. He was calling for everyone’s attention, and, as a matter of fact, it was of frequent occurrence that announcements of different sorts were made in this way, so nothing to be surprised at. The guy notified us that it is in UWCM’s traditions to pronounce the mission statement all together at least once a day. How wonderful that probably all of us know it by heart at this point, is what I thought. However, the fact that a lot of people were not confident in the exact wording of the phrase that is considered the overall goal of the movement we all found ourselves in, astonished me. Indeed, many of my co-years were not as eager to repeat after our second years as I was. Nonetheless, this went on for about a week or two, and usually at a completely unpredictable moment of the day, one of the DP2s called on all of us to verify that we remembered the mission statement. Gradually we stopped doing that, and no-one seemed to mind that much. I forgot about all of that amidst the regular fluster of the IB and UWC experience, although, one day, this topic came up in discussion with my DP2 roommate. “You know this was all a big joke, right?” - she said, and I casually assured her that I was not stupid and obviously was aware of that.
Yet it was undeniably naive of me to expect everyone at UWC to know all our values by heart because, as I later realized, we are all diverse in not only our backgrounds and countries we come from but also in our own stories that lead us to study at UWCM. We all came here with different purposes, and we all have various interpretations of what is expected of a UWC student. My school has a big day-student community, and before actually arriving in the Netherlands, I thought that the only way to get into one of the UWCs was either through the National Committee or through the Global Selection program. Evidently, most people have absolutely different experiences with the UWC selection or whatnot, even when coming from the same country. You can spend your entire life dreaming about coming to this place and not even be allowed to choose where you will be allocated to by your NC, or you can find yourself directly applying to one of the schools at the last minute.
All of this is valid, and this is the beauty of the UWC movement - our backgrounds, views, and perspectives vary; what also differs but is, nevertheless, as equally important is why we choose or do not choose to come here in the first place. It contributes to UWCs being the schools they are today, and is, at least for me, an undoubtedly crucial facet of our lives here.
www.unitedworldwide.co