The Personal Project Exhibition is an annual event hosted and organised by each year’s current cohort in the tenth grade. This article is the second of two which examines the Personal Project experiences of four students. 

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This article is the second in a two-part series spotlighting the 2022 KIS Personal Project Exhibition. 

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Angel Chand introduced herself to us simply as Angel from G10A. Privy to us, she is also a part of KIS Today as a member writer. 

“My project was about sensory stimulation and sensory perception,” she then told me. “It was about psychology and neurology.” Her global context, appropriately, was Scientific and Technical Innovation. 

What Angel liked best about her personal project was the process of creating her final product. She said that she really enjoyed researching more about the different areas of sensory stimulation, such as the different senses, and how to appeal to each of them.

“It was very interesting to learn more about psychology,” she remarked.

What she liked less about the personal project, however, were its many formalities.  

“Like the source analysis, or the success criteria,” Angel had elaborated. To her, these things were a little too nit-picky, and encouraged a more uniform project which made the entire ordeal less ‘personal’ and more of just a project.

If she could change one thing about her process, Angel told me that she would have focused more on the creation of her product, rather than formalities such as the source analysis and the formulated research plan.

“I conducted my research in a way that was not like how my supervisor would have liked it to be,” she said. “It was just different.”

With more of a leaning towards the arts, Jean Lie Chabanier, also from 10A, on the other hand, did character drawings. 

“I came up with this idea from my seven- to eight-year long interest in drawing,” he explained, “and, well, I’ve always liked drawing, so I said: why not do a passion for the project?”

Jean Lie told me that his personal project process began with a difficult start, and that he was very disorganised at the beginning. He didn’t stick to many of the rules, (“Or feedback, and all,” he’d added), but near the end of the journey, he ‘eventually got the hang of it’.

His supervisor was also a big help to him, having helped clarify for him a lot of the slew of instructions. He said that she had made his path a lot easier in general.

If he could do the project again, Jean Lie told me that he’d probably consider doing more drawings, or being more ambitious. He would also try to be more concentrated and organised. 

When it came to the virtual Gather exhibition, though, neither him or Angel were huge fans. 

“There’s hardly any interaction,” Jean Lie said, “so it was very hard to present. And plus, many visitors would pop into the stall then leave half-way through the presentation. People are also a whole lot less encouraged to visit the stalls in the virtual format, and I feel it’s a shame we hadn’t done the exhibition physically.”

“The virtual exhibition was a nice option,” Angel noted. “But it was very exhausting talking to a screen, and it was just repeating the same things over and over and over. It was very frustrating too, because people kept leaving in the middle, and you couldn’t really chase them down like you would have if you were talking to them in real life.”

She wouldn’t do the exhibition again in Gather if she had the choice, and Angel also said to me that she wouldn’t recommend doing the exhibition in Gather either. As a member of KIS Today, I am but a reporter of my fellow students’ opinions. As a Grade 10 student who also had to present online for the entire day, however, I must say that it was, indeed, quite exhausting.

“But again,” continued Angel, “it is what it is.”

Her advice to incoming G10s is to focus on the personal project idea, and less on the multiple formalities of the project, because even though some supervisors may tell you that the researching or documenting being done isn’t sufficient, in the end, it is not the research that is being graded, but rather, the personal project report. 

In a different vein, Jean Lie told me that the next batch of students completing the personal project should know that they should not be afraid to ask for help or feedback when they need it.

“Don’t deny help, because you’ll definitely need it,” he said. And thus, our interview came to a close.

“That’s a wrap,” I told him.

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This year’s personal project exhibition was, certainly, different. 

Never before has KIS, nor any other school, to my knowledge, attempted to host a personal project exhibition on Gather Town. But simply because it was different does not mean it was all bad. 

(In fact, I’ve been told that the Gather Town team themselves put a story on their official LinkedIn about the KIS G10 Personal Project Exhibition being held on their platform.)

Of course, the general agreement between G1o students is that it would have been better to hold the exhibition in person, but due to the constraints of the COVID-19 pandemic’s restrictions, at least at first, and then, time, we were not able to do so. 

As Angel had said: it is what it is. We simply had to make do with what we had, and, even if not satisfactory to everyone, the exhibition still was a learning experience for all. 

To some, that is valuable enough in itself.