This week I came across a page on ‘Yahoo! Answers’ that posed the question “I want to know why a UWC is considered such an amazing place. Please, I have an interview soon and this is something I'd love to know. Please reply in detail”.

It was a good question. For some especially well-informed students, the two years they spend in a United World College proves to be precisely what they expected, but whether this is so or not largely depends on the expectations and information they had prior to arrival.  For many students, the two years were much better than they expected in almost every imaginable way.  Alternatively, depending on expectations, the two years in a UWC may have included disappointments, such as the unexpected awareness that life in a UWC involved lots of work and study, or the day a student realised that it was unlikely he or she would actually manage to achieve the UWC mission statement of bringing about world peace and sustainability - at least during the two years of the program.  There is a lot of stretch in our very ambitious mission statement!

The reality is that the world ‘out there’ is not like a United World College.  Whatever our graduates do in the years after they leave, they probably won’t again be mixing with young people from 80 different countries who share a common aspiration to promote international understanding and sustainability.  After experiencing the idealism, creativity and energy of a United World College, the world can sometimes appear to be a somewhat drab, cynical and rigid environment.

In fact, some of our recent graduates tell me that university can be a bit of a disappointment after two years in a UWC.  The sense of idealism they knew here at Li Po Chun United World College is often missing at university, the creativity and sense of fun are often lacking, and the structures can seem unnecessarily rigid at universities!  Then it begins to dawn on them – the two years they had here were a frantically busy, perhaps sleep-deprived whirlwind, but they were amazing and special times that will never be repeated.  Socially, academically, culturally, philosophically, physically - the experience of studying and living in a United World College is certainly something that should never taken for granted, even for a moment.

This week saw the end of the Hong Kong selection interviews for 2010 entry, and this coming week will see the graduation dinner for our final year students who will shortly commence their IB Diploma examinations.  Although it was only a three-day week (because of the Easter and Qing Ming holidays), it was typically busy.  To give just a few examples, on Wednesday we hosted a MUN (Model United Nations) day, during which we were honoured to welcome Mr Hugh Williams (Consul and Consular Section Chief of the US Consulate General in Hong Kong) and Mr Robert Schuddeboom (Consul-General for the Netherlands in Hong Kong) (see photograph at the top of this blog).  Mr Williams and Mr Schuddeboom each shared their quite amazing experiences as diplomats in various parts of the world, holding the rapt attention of our students.

On Friday evening, Di and I hosted the final dinner in our home for 1st Year students.  For the past few years, we have been inviting students to come in small groups to our home for dinner, and without exception these have been thoroughly stimulating and enjoyable occasions.  We still have a couple of dinners for 2nd Year students scheduled before the IB Diploma examinations begin.

Yesterday the IFP (Initiative for Peace) students welcomed 30 younger students from a local secondary school and provided training in positive conflict resolution and mediation.  The lessons of diplomacy seemed to work very effectively as the visitors lavished praise on our canteen food!

The busy times will continue in the days and weeks ahead, with the opening of this year’s Visual Arts exhibition this evening, and several events during the coming week that will culminate in the graduation dinner on Friday night, followed by a special canteen party for all our students (but wholly organised by our 1st students) from midnight to 2 am on Friday night / Saturday morning.

Returning to the question that was asked on Yahoo!, however, I would find it very difficult to provide a concise and adequate answer that is less than encyclopedic in length.  Fortunately, one of LPCUWC’s recent graduates (Neil Keating, who is also giving generously of his time to the UWC Movement by serving on the UK National Committee) is more succinct, and he has provided an excellent answer on Yahoo! Answers.  I refer you to his response HERE.

i want to know why a UWC is considered such an amazing place. please i have an interview soon and this is something i'd love to know.

Please reply in detail.

Hi there,

This is a very good question and it's not as straight forward to answer and you may hope. I suppose everyone will speak highly of their school - assuming they enjoyed going there - and so you will have to take my words with the understanding that I am an alumnus of a UWC (Li Po Chun) and continue to work with the movement. UWCs are not like other international schools and are not like other (non-international) schools in a great many ways. For example, the campuses are genuinely diverse in so many ways - you find around 80 nationalities and many more languages, all religions you could think to name, all political opinions and a great number of very passionate people who know what they are talking about (most of the time). The campuses find teachers and students living in the same residential blocks (the living situation of each college is different, so look into this in more detail) and this provides for a genuinely family-style community. This is so important when you are away from home and I can honestly say that the friends (including a number of teachers) that I made in my two years at a UWC are ones that will stay with me forever. 

I suppose many people would say that their high school experience was intense, but I have never since discovered a more active environment than UWC (and trust me, I've been looking!) Every day is packed full of things to do, people to meet, things to learn. It can be overwhelming, but UWC selects people who thrive in those scenarios, so it generally works. You have classes followed by community service/activity (as part of the IB CAS programme) and then time to socialise (and of course do homework...) There are always more things to do - you never know when you will run into a new person who you haven't had a chance to meet yet and discover something exciting about them, where they are from or just about the world in general.

There is a "bigger" thing that UWCs do well and that is to prepare its students for years of action afterwards - this might mean working for NGO's, businesses, governments, working in education or in the arts. Usually it's a mixture of those different things over the course of a life time because in so many ways UWCs open you up to new possibilities rather than setting you on a definite and fixed course for the rest of your life. And in each of those areas of life UWCs will give you the tools not just to succeed but also to make a positive impact for the world. It's not about becoming a world leading politician and changing everything in one swoop, but rather finding yourself in a place and a circumstance where you can do something that will help people other than yourself and you will make a concerted effort to do that. 

UWCs are highly respected by universities and it's just not enough to have good grades to get into uni anymore. You need to be a more well-rounded individual, with an outlook that is broad as well as informed with a good knowledge of how the world works. It's not that UWCs will give you all the answers about how the world works, but rather it will help you to question thew world around you - seeking to understand it by asking the questions that show how political decisions get made, for example, or why companies behave in certain ways. When I did my BA degree after UWC the whole academic part (I did a theatre degree) was not too challenging because I had been through the rigours of the IB curriculum. The IB is taught in many school across the world, but in UWCs they don't teach to the exams, they teach the material (in all subjects) in such a way as to show its usefulness in life far beyond the contexts of moving on to the next academic level. I still refer back to lessons I learnt in English or History or Economics today (and I'm not involved in any of those subjects academically or professionally). It's a learning for life and it produces critical thinking, innovative people in all walks of professional life. 

UWC education is not for everyone and there are people who find the whole experience just inappropriate for them at that stage of their lives - sometimes I think it would be better for people who are a little further along, maybe finished their BA - but the fact is that for everyone this experience will challenge you in the best way possible, ask you to strive to achieve things you did not thing you would be able to and push you to experience things that you would never have otherwise been in a position to do. A case in point would be project weeks - again, something that all IB schools do. In UWCs they tend to involve a greater degree of independence, more of a community service element and more "interesting" places - that is to say, going off the tourist trail to some extent. 

Anyway, do have a long hard think about whether this is for you - there are always lots of disappointed people when it comes to UWC selections, so I'm sure there are people who would appreciate the place you have at interview.