CAS Portfolio
CAS Portfolio: Creativity, Activity, Service
CAS Portfolio: Creativity, Activity, Service
IB Learning Outcomes
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Climbing/Wilderness
Theatre
Stage Tech
Sewing/Art
Community Engagement
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Wilderness/Climbing
Stage Tech
Sewing
Community Engagement
Border Trips
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Sewing/Art
Border Trips
Theatre
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Wilderness/Climbing
Theatre
Stage Tech
Sewing/Art
Community Engagement
Annual Conference
Border Trips
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Wilderness/Climbing
Tech Stage
Theatre
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Border Trips
Annual Conference
Community Engagement
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Border Trips
Community Engagement
Annual Conference
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Border Trips
Querencia/Community Engagement
Expeditions
Theatre
Wilderness & Climbing
At UWC-USA, the Wilderness program is a key program that all students must complete requirements for. In my first year, I attended a Wilderness trip and a climbing trip, and found a passion for the outdoors. I have always been interested in climbing and my family has gone on many camping trips, so I was well suited to attend the 14-day wilderness trip this August. During 14 day, I learned many skills in leadership as well as wilderness. I learned patience, perseverance, endurance, and most importantly, how to manage a group safely in the wilderness while still having fun. We cooked together, planned our hikes and camping spots, read maps and searched for water, and learned how to teach all that we had learned to the upcoming class which we would lead on a 3 day orientation backpacking trip. I went on a one-week climbing trip and on other in-school climbing opportunities, and I applied and received climbing leadership. Climbing is not only a fun form of exercise, but a lesson in agility and confidence. I overcame my fear of heights and continued to climb and face challenges that came from fear and lack of skill, and I worked to strengthen the muscles used for climbing.
Theatre
Theatre has been an essential part of my UWC experience. In my first year, I played Herr Schultz in Cabaret. This was important production as it addressed rising fascism globally, and I was honored to take part in sharing the message of Cabaret with an international community. I played Wadsworth in Clue this fall as part of the second year theatre production, and that was a role I loved. It was very fun to work with a small cast. The theatre community at UWC is wonderful, and I had been involved in theatre for a long time so I was excited to learn more about other aspects of theatre like directing, building sets, and stage managing.
Stage Tech
I joined the stage tech team in my first year and became a leader. At UWC I discovered my love for technical theatre, and I worked backstage for several performances, learning how to use power tools to build, paint, and put together sets. I learned how to stage manage, organize performers, and manage props and microphones. I worked with an amazing crew to make sure all the student run shows went smoothly. I learned to work in a team during high-stress situations, and sometimes struggled to organize and manage all the moving parts that come with putting on a show. We constantly had to transition sets quickly, and I found it difficult to remember what was needed, communicate with other tech groups as well as stage, performers, and also perform and cover jobs for people who were performing. I had a lot of fun working on shows and building sets, however, and my knowledge of power tools increased greatly.
Sewing Hub/Art
I have been a member and then leader of Sewing Hub throughout my time at UWC, and I have learned a lot: how to sew with a machine, different embroidery techniques, and how to teach others to sew. Having materials like the sewing room and magazines in the art room truly helped my creativity flow and expand. I made many art projects and it became a mode of stress release.
Annual Conference & Border Trips
Each year UWC hosts an annual conference, where we invite guest speakers and students and faculty from other schools in New Mexico to discuss global issues and partake in workshops. I attended a workshop by Noor Cornelissen (UWC-USA ‘10) where she discussed her experience on a search and rescue ship helping migrants trying to cross the Mediterreanean Sea. I also attended a workshop with Dora Rodriguez, who I met again during my first US-Mexico border trip to Arizona. The workshops brought my attention towards the immigration crisis and helped me to picture what it would’ve been like to flee from my country. The theme of the first conference was Overcoming Polarization, and the next year’s annual conference focused on the attention economy and danger of surveillance through technology. I had many enriching conversations during these conversations about data collection, immigration, and humanitarian aid. I became very interested in human rights and NGO work to help people in need, and even began considering it as a career.
Workshop with Dora Rodriguez
Workshop with Noor Cornelissen
I attended two trips to the US-Mexico border, one to Tucson, Arizona in 2025 and one to El Paso, Texas in 2026. During these trips, my groups met with non-profit groups that do humanitarian aid for migrants. We visited shelters for migrants, went for hikes to drop water in the desert in areas known to be travelled by migrants, and learned a lot about specific stories of migrants and how border patrol works to kill them through Prevention by Deterrence (mostly in Arizona), which is a method of forcing migrants to cross the border through dangerous terrain of the desert instead of being able to cross in more populated areas. We visited a shelter for migrants in Nogales, Mexico, and I connected strongly with the people there and even reached out to the shelter in hopes of volunteering there for a summer. I also wish to volunteer with No More Deaths, another humanitarian organization we worked with for the water drops, who also do search & rescue missions. In both Texas and Arizona I visited immigration court hearings, and those were especially meaningful as I heard many people’s stories and was faced with the bureaucratic brutality of the US governmental system and saw firsthand how easily it was so deport people. I was reminded of my own privilege to be raised in a decently rich immigrant family, and considered the ethics of people who view immigrants as dangerous and how they must have been raised differently to believe that.
Community Engagement: Querencia, Basecamp, & Expeditions
Querencia at UWC is a weekly community engagement program that everyone attends during their first year. I spent my first trimester helping with work on the land, meditating, and helping organize items for a thrift store during my querencia Bueno Para Todos. My other two semesters were spent at the Rio Gallinas Elementary School, where I attended the program PhilosophyForKids. Phil4Kids was a program where UWC students would read books to 1st-3rd graders and discuss the philosophical morals of the stories. I struggled to not get too emotionally attached to the kids considering they came from difficult backgrounds of abandonment, poverty, etc. and they became like little siblings to me. I felt like I didn’t learn as much about the Las Vegas community than I wanted to, but community engagement taught me a lot about New Mexico’s education and social issues, and reminded me of my own privilege to be safe, comfortable, educated, and fed.
Basecamp at UWC is a form of helping the UWC community, which can look like spending hours at the farm picking tomatoes, emptying compost buckets or helping in dorms to organize free clothes. Sewing hub is also a basecamp because we teach students to sew and repair their clothes.
Expeditions at UWC are Fridays spent off-campus doing expeditionary learning, so visiting cultural museums, shelters for domestic violence, youth programs, or attending workshops on conflict resolution and differing perspectives. I have learned a lot about New Mexican culture and history as well as considered the power dynamics historically and currently of race, wealth, and language. Each expedition is related to a class, and I have engaged in many art forms as a result of taking Group 3 and 6 classes.
