Rose Peifer

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CAS Final Reflections

Rose Peifer
4/29/11

Increased my own self-awareness of my strengths and areas for growth?

CAS is an opportunity for students to increase awareness of their own skills and
areas of improvement. The activities in which I accomplished this most were: my flute
lessons and performances, the Candlelight Tour, and The Wedding Singer production.
I have taken weekly flute lessons since my freshman year of high school with a
local teacher. Through these, I have increased my capacity for self-awareness: playing
music challenges you in many ways, as it requires practice and discipline. One area of
strength I have discovered is my tone, which I feel is the best part of my playing.
However, these lessons have also revealed areas in which I could grow. As part of the
lessons, I have participated in the Raleigh Area Flute Association (RAFA) Flute
Competition for two years in a row. I have had to overcome my fear of performance
because, in this competition, participants play in front of two judges. The first year I
participated, I did not play my best because of nerves. This year, however, I conquered
my fear of performance and earned Honorable Mention. I have also played around the
community in other events in order to address my fear of performance. The Candlelight
Tour is an event held during the winter holidays in Hillsborough: members of the
community tour all the historic houses and buildings and musicians play holiday music

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for atmosphere. Through my school band program, I volunteered to be a part of a flute
ensemble. We performed outside a historic church for the entertainment of the tourists.
Furthermore, I have participated in the pit orchestra for a musical production: The
Wedding Singer This was a great experience, because I had the opportunity to contribute
to an activity I love, musical theater, in a way that was both constructive and fun for me.
I built on the skills I learned in flute lessons and applied them to musical theater, a
challenging experience in which my self-awareness of my abilities increased. Through
experiences such as these, I have discovered my strengths, while simultaneously
discovering areas for growth, specifically in music.

Undertaken new challenges?

In the course of completing my CAS hours, I had numerous opportunities to take
on new challenges. Activities in which this was particularly relevant are: Turkish lessons,
Marching Band, and Track/Cross Country.
I began taking Turkish lessons this year for several reasons: First of all, I love
studying languages, and thus provided a perfect opportunity to learn a new one.
Secondly, after college, I hope to go into Foreign Service and am thinking about working
in Turkey for a humanitarian organization. These were the two motivating factors behind
my decision. This has turned out to be very challenging: Turkish is derived from a totally
different language family than either English or Spanish (which I study is school). It has
definitely been a challenge to learn it, but I have enjoyed it nonetheless.

Rose Peifer
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I participated in Marching Band for the first time this year, so this was a challenge
in itself. However, I also learned a new instrument to participate: the vibraphone. My
normal instrument is flute, and so learning a keyboard instrument was extremely
challenging, but which I eventually accomplished. This challenge helped me learn
valuable lessons about the power of perseverance and dedication.
Lastly, athletics have also been an area that I have been challenged in. For an unathletic person like myself, joining the Cross Country and Winter Track teams turned out
to be a huge challenge. However, sports do offer valuable lessons outside of athletics
they teach you dedication and persistence in the face of difficulty, both valuable lessons
outside the world of sports.

Planned and initiated activities?

The IB Program at Cedar Ridge participates in the Food For All Program that
provides food for needy residents of the Hillsborough area. A group of three other IB
students and I were in charge of coordinating Food For All for the IB program last year
and part of this year. Every month we had to do fundraising at the school to buy food.
Then, we prepared a menu for the event that was wholesome and healthy. After that, we
went shopping for the ingredients. On the day of the event, we coordinated the
operations and served as leaders. Through this event, I gained valuable skills in
coordination, organization, and leadership.

Rose Peifer
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Worked collaboratively with others?

Music is an activity that requires an enormous amount of collaboration with a group. I
have participated in many musical groups in high school; Marching Band and UNCG
Honor Band in particular required a lot of cooperation within the group. The success of a
marching band depends on how well its members work together. In the training camp
before the season began, we learned team-building skills and got a feel for the group and
how our sound blended.
The same principles held for the UNCG Honor Band I participated in this year: I
auditioned for and made this group, and had the opportunity to play a concert with the
band at UNCG this past semester. Since none of us had ever played with each other
before, we had to work together to refine our sound.
Our school has a partnership with Habitat for Humanity, and organization that
builds homes for poor families. The IB program did an education session where we went
around to classrooms and gave speeches explaining what Habitat for Humanity was and
its importance in our community. This experience involved much collaboration between
group members because we had to plan who was going to say what, and had to plan how
to interact with the classes.
Lastly, Food For All is an activity that requires a lot of collaboration with others.
There were two levels of cooperation I experienced: As a leader, and as a worker. The
leaders had to work together to organize, plan, and execute the event every month. This
involved collaborating on fundraising efforts, planning the menu, and shopping. As a

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worker, we had to collaborate with the entire group to produce a meal for 100. I gained
valuable skills of working in a group through this activity.

Showed perseverance and commitment in my activity?

I have shown perseverance and committed in two areas in particular: music and
service.
Music is an important creative outlet for me. In the course of my CAS hour
completion, I have participated in many musical activities: UNCG Honor Band, Raleigh
Area Flute Association Competition (RAFA), Marching Band, and musical theater (The
Wedding Singer). The area in which I demonstrated perseverance the most was in
Marching Band: I had to learn a completely new instrument in a very short time for this
activity. Although it seemed impossible in the beginning that I would be able to
memorize four movements of music, much less learn to play the vibraphone, I persevered
and by the first competition I had succeeded. The activities in which I best demonstrated
dedication were: RAFA, UNCG Honor Band, and musical theater. None of these
activities were required, and I participated in them by my own choice. This shows
commitment to music by going further than was required.

Rose Peifer
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A large portion of my community service for the past two years has been
dedicated to Food For All. I was part of a group of IB students who lead the activity in
junior and senior year. Being the leader of an activity requires more dedication than
simply being a member of the group: we planned, organized, and directed the activity,
demonstrating our dedication to the activity. We also showed perseverance in the face of
challenges. Often, the money we raised through fundraising was not sufficient to buy
enough food. However, instead of giving up or buying cheaper, unhealthy food, we
scoured stores for deals so that we could provide people with healthy meals.

Engaged with issues of global importance?

CAS gives students an opportunity to make a contribution to their community,
and to the global community as a whole. This often means becoming engaged in issues
with global implications, such as hunger, poverty, disease, recycling, and education.
One category of service I participate in dealt with poverty and hunger. These
activities were: Food For All, the Chapel Hill Homeless Shelter, Nothing But Nets,
Habitat for Humanity, and Stop Hunger Now. Food For All is an organization that
provides healthy meals to the poor residents of Orange County. I participated and helped
lead this activity for my school: Every month, Cedar Ridge High School IB students
would prepare a healthy meal for about one hundred people. We would then package the
meals and take them to two drop off points, a local church and hotel to distribute them to
the people who needed them. This experience was extremely touching: I had never
realized the amount of people in my community who were struggling and who did not

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have access to adequate food. The thing that affected me the most were the children that
sometimes showed up to pick up the food. Another similar activity was volunteering at
the Chapel Hill Homeless Shelter. I helped prepare meals in this as well, and served them
to poor and homeless members of the Chapel Hill community. This activity opened my
eyes to the problems of poverty and hunger in my community. Finally, I participate in
another activity in Chapel Hill last year that addressed the same problems of hunger and
poverty: the Stop Hunger Now walk. This event helped raise money for fighting hunger
and poverty in our community and worldwide. These two problems are worldwide issues
as well as local ones, as millions of people in the world suffer these same problems every
day.
Habitat For Humanity is an organization that builds houses for those who cant
afford to build them in safe neighborhoods. My high school has a partnership with this
organization, and our school helps raise money to build a house for a family in our
community. Part of this involved me giving a presentation to a class about the purpose of
Habitat for Humanity, and part involved me helping in a dinner fundraising event to help
raise money. This event brought to my awareness the problem of poverty in my
community, and in my school system as the family for whom the house was built have
children in the Orange County school system. Poverty and safe housing are also
worldwide problems that I engaged with through this activity.
My school also has a partnership with the Nothing But Nets Foundation that
works to provide mosquito netting to people in Africa to help prevent the spread of
Malaria. Our basketball team holds fundraisers for this at their games, and I staffed the
table for one game. I told people about the cause and asked them to donate money to the

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effort. This activity definitely engaged me in an issue of global importance. Disease,
specifically Malaria, is a serious problem in many parts o the undeveloped world.
Orange County has a large recycling program. At a local festival, Festifall, the
organization does several things: It ensures that all plates, cups, and silverware are
compostable, and that all paper, bottles, and cans are recycled. I volunteered as a roving
recycler: I stood at a large set of trash cans and recycling bins and helped people put
their waste in the correct bins. I also walked around to the vendors after the festival was
over and collected their recycling. This event was a great example of how CAS has
allowed me to address issues of global importance, in this case recycling and waste
management.
I recently participated in an event in Chapel Hill at Trk Evi, a Turkish foundation
that provides Turkish students attending UNC with housing. The organization recently
held an event to raise money for the Bridge to Turkey Foundation, which supports girls
education in Turkey. I helped at this event by signing people in and selling raffle tickets,
as well as answering peoples questions. Through this activity, I engaged in an activity
that supported education, an issue in many nations. Similarly, through the Spanish Honor
Society at my school, I participated in a childcare program at a local Elementary School
for children whose parents were taking English as a Second Language (ESL) courses. I
helped supervise the children and read to them, both in English and in Spanish. Through
this, I was again engaged in the important issue of education.

Rose Peifer
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Considered the ethical implications of my actions?

Many of the activities I did for CAS had ethical implications, including: Food For
All, Roving Recyclers, ESL childcare, and Turkish Day.
Food For All had very beneficial ethical implications: I was directly helping those
people in the community who needed it most. Nothing was sacrificed for this activity, so
there were not any negative ethical implications to take into consideration with this
activity.
At the Roving Recyclers event, my actions definitely had ethical implications:
Recycling waste at the event saved lots of waste from being duped in landfills and
polluting the environment.
At Turkish Day, my work at the event helped promote education in Turkey,
specifically girls education. In Turkey and many other countries, girls do not get equal
access to education in many areas, and so this event helped girls who would otherwise
not have received an education.

Rose Peifer
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Developed new skills?

I developed new skills in all my activities, but especially in the following: Food
For All, Marching Band, Herbarium volunteering, and Turkish lessons.
In Food For All, I developed skills for leadership, organization, and planning
through my role as a leader and through the organization of the event. This will be very
beneficial in the future throughout my life, as these skills are applicable to every aspect of
life.
In Marching Band, I learned several new skills: I learned a new instrument and
learned how to play within the band. I had never participated in marching band before,
and had to learn how my role in the group. Furthermore, I learned how to play the
vibraphone for marching band, a skill that was very new to me.
Through my work in the Herbarium, I learned how to sew and mount plant
specimens, a skill I had no idea how to do before.
Lastly, through my Turkish lessons, I studied a new language. Knowing more
than one language is a skill that is indispensable in our increasingly global world.

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