Dear UWC Georgia,

First of all, I would like to say thank you for giving me this great opportunity to join big family of UWC Thailand. I am glad to be chosen.

It is already 3 months gone after I came here. The first week was tough for all of us, as we were missing our families. However a great adventure started after we overcame the first week stress. We knew that we need to support each other, as the IB life is truly hard. Students here became closer to each other throughout the first month, we were getting used to the education system, everyday life here.

As UWC Thailand has just joined the big family of UWC, on the 1st of October we had grand opening ceremony with great performances from different cultures and traditions. The great fact that we were excited about was that Her Majesty, Queen Noor of Jordan; the president of UWC movement was with us. The ceremony was amazing and everyone loved it.

Living in such a diverse atmosphere, studying in a class where each of the students has different nationalities, different backgrounds and their own different stories - I can not say it was usual for me. Diversity - It is one of the biggest things that makes UWC. As all of us are unalike UWC student should be open-minded - understand and appreciate other people culture and traditions.
The difference between the education system of my old school and UWC IB programme is huge. We are still getting used to the programme, despite 3 month of being here. The programme itself is truly hard. “Nobody said it was easy, no one ever said it would be this hard”. Nevertheless, the support from teachers and each member of the community helps us to get used to the curriculum and so we are gaining great skill of time balance that will help us to make our future life better. In addition, I would like to say that as we chose 6 particular subjects that we are passionate about, doing this much work in that subjects is not that much tough for us as we are really interested in them and learning new things in our areas of interests is easier.

As for co-curriculum activities, which make our IB life better, the school had a wide variety of activities for creativity and activity as well as service. Choosing what we are interested in and doing them after hard school day is really amazing. The service activities, which include lots of exciting things here, make us feel that we are doing something very, very tiny for the global engagement. Living in this diverse atmosphere makes all of us, Georgian students of UWC movement, feel, appreciate, respect and promote our amazing culture and traditions. It makes us spread information about the eminence of our country with everyone and to feel proud to represent our small, but ancient country with people of other nationalities. Additionally, I am happy to keep in touch with Georgian students in other UWCs. My excitement was unconditional when I saw Tatia, from UWC Singapore, here, on my island, during October break, after 2 months of being away from our country. Both of us were so grateful to see each other 14,672 kilometers away from our country.

I am pretty amazed about Thailand. I can say that this is one of the most spectacular places on this planet, with great nature, culture and traditions. Thai people are one of the nicest people, always with smiling face and willing to help us with anything they can do for us. The humidity here, as well as in my hometown Batumi, is really high. Weather is always sunny, however we had 4 months of rainy season and we are looking forward to finishing it and having more sunny days. Living in the campus of spectacular environment, next to an amazing rainforest, sharing territory with amazing Thanyapura leisure and sports center, which has the best sport training facilities in the southeast Asia, on the Phuket island, with astonishing beaches make our UWC experience better. I am extremely happy to be a part of this amazing community. I am pleased of being here and looking forward to getting more and more opportunities to make my UWC experience absorbing. 



Kind Regards,

Mariam, UWC Thailand'18