How much can I get away with faking CAS? Or what is the bottom limit?

[Ayça]

I'm suffering from severe social anxiety and I have to take up more meds and extra hormones to able to participate the activities. I just wanted to know how much CAS I have to do to graduate? I really wanted to have some challenges and get out of my comfort zone for awhile but it has come to a point where it is very painful.

[IB_taking_over]

Back when I did CAS (2016), the minimum requirement was 150 hours (50 of each). My high school still does it this way, however, I believe IB has changed the 150 hour requirement. Since CAS varies so much by school, your best bet is probably to go talk to your coordinator or whoever is in charge of your CAS. 

[Ayça]

11 minutes ago, IB_taking_over said:

Back when I did CAS (2016), the minimum requirement was 150 hours (50 of each). My high school still does it this way, however, I believe IB has changed the 150 hour requirement. Since CAS varies so much by school, your best bet is probably to go talk to your coordinator or whoever is in charge of your CAS. 

Yeah, it has changed. I suppose it doesn't have a time limit now. My CAS coordinator is too dense, I know she is trying to the best for us to guarantee CAS at least but she didn't really answer my question   I guess I have to wait and see how the 12th years will do this year. Thank you for the reply 

[ABKor752]

First, I am very sorry about your issue. I wish the best for you in terms of social anxiety.

Second, there are ways to achieve CAS despite your fears. As said previously, IB requires 150 hours of CAS total, though my school says at least 40 in each category. That means that (at least, for my school,) you could do 40 hours of creativity, 60 hours of action, and 50 hours of service. Every school varies on the per-category requirements, but typically it is still 150 hours overall.

The IB requires one of your projects to be a "self-initiated" project, in which you create the activity yourself and go through with it with some supervision (keep reading to see what that means). Though the IB wants variety, they never specify that most of your projects can't be self-initiated, provided that you follow the self-initiation guidelines. (You do have to do at least one project in a group, but that is just one. For the rest, you can find ways of doing self-initiation.) Basically, an example of a self-initiated project would be writing a short story. Say you never wrote stories before and wanted to try. You spend time researching how to write a short story, take notes, make tables of ideas, write a rough draft, maybe have someone look at it, and make a final draft. All the while, you record your hours at home. To keep academic honesty, you have a teacher at your school "supervise" you by continuously updating him/her on your work to make sure you've been going through with it. This could also work with learning how to make a song, draw, make Youtube videos, even create a Minecraft map (yeah I did that back in MYP).

In that activity, you wouldn't have to interact with others as much. You could also do things such as start exercise goals and keep track of exercising and have that same sort of supervision technique for action hours. (Note that lots of people have tried counting exercise as action. It's fine, you just need to make sure you are frequently reflecting and writing down goals for yourself.)

For service, are there some small activities you can help out with around your school? I got some service hours just by putting the school laptops away after school (plugging them in, reorganizing, etc.), and that required minimal social interaction. See what your school has to offer.

Everybody, and I mean everybody, has one category of CAS that they dread. (For me, it's action.) For the ones you enjoy, find activities you enjoy, and don't overpush yourself.

I wish the best for you, and I hope for your success in CAS. You got this.

[Ayça]

On 1/4/2018 at 6:18 AM, ABKor752 said:

First, I am very sorry about your issue. I wish the best for you in terms of social anxiety.

Second, there are ways to achieve CAS despite your fears. As said previously, IB requires 150 hours of CAS total, though my school says at least 40 in each category. That means that (at least, for my school,) you could do 40 hours of creativity, 60 hours of action, and 50 hours of service. Every school varies on the per-category requirements, but typically it is still 150 hours overall.

The IB requires one of your projects to be a "self-initiated" project, in which you create the activity yourself and go through with it with some supervision (keep reading to see what that means). Though the IB wants variety, they never specify that most of your projects can't be self-initiated, provided that you follow the self-initiation guidelines. (You do have to do at least one project in a group, but that is just one. For the rest, you can find ways of doing self-initiation.) Basically, an example of a self-initiated project would be writing a short story. Say you never wrote stories before and wanted to try. You spend time researching how to write a short story, take notes, make tables of ideas, write a rough draft, maybe have someone look at it, and make a final draft. All the while, you record your hours at home. To keep academic honesty, you have a teacher at your school "supervise" you by continuously updating him/her on your work to make sure you've been going through with it. This could also work with learning how to make a song, draw, make Youtube videos, even create a Minecraft map (yeah I did that back in MYP).

In that activity, you wouldn't have to interact with others as much. You could also do things such as start exercise goals and keep track of exercising and have that same sort of supervision technique for action hours. (Note that lots of people have tried counting exercise as action. It's fine, you just need to make sure you are frequently reflecting and writing down goals for yourself.)

For service, are there some small activities you can help out with around your school? I got some service hours just by putting the school laptops away after school (plugging them in, reorganizing, etc.), and that required minimal social interaction. See what your school has to offer.

Everybody, and I mean everybody, has one category of CAS that they dread. (For me, it's action.) For the ones you enjoy, find activities you enjoy, and don't overpush yourself.

I wish the best for you, and I hope for your success in CAS. You got this.

First of all, thank you so much for the reply. I honestly think that my school's attitude towards CAS is both very strict but also very sloppy at the same time. They made us do a long-term activity for each category but they don't know much about CAS they don't answer my questions? Ah I don't know anymore. Thankfully school helped me with Creativity and Service part. I still dread action even though I used to be a professional tennis player until two years ago but decided to quit it because I realized I hated it. I'm so bad at starting new things so I didn't start any new action, but I have some things in mind...

Also, I chuckled a little when I read that you made a Minecraft Map for CAS, I think its hilarious and creative. Maybe I should do something like that too!

Thanks again, I feel like I feel a lot more confident after your words. It means a lot...