We are Wellington | A catalyst for success, Mats '21
The 2021 academic year is fast coming to a close. Soon, another class of Wellingtonians will go out into the world to accomplish great things. Until then, we are giving some of our 2021 Leavers the opportunity to reflect on their time at Wellington and what they intend to accomplish after they leave.
Today, we talk with year 13 pupil Mats. Mats has been a Wellingtonian since the very beginning. He joined the school as a year 7 pupil in 2014, our inaugural year. In the seven years since, he has truly come into his own, unlocking athletic talents, discovering his passion for science and cultivating his leadership skills as a head of college. This fall, Mats will return to his home country of Belgium, where he will pursue a degree in chemical engineering at KU Leuven.
"The biggest factor for me was the fact that Wellington offers the IB Diploma Programme. Other comparable diploma programmes expect you to focus on just a few subjects, but this is the time in our lives when we should be experiencing and learning as much as possible. We need to be able to keep our options open."
"IB taught me the importance of working hard and keeping on top of the subject matter you are studying. When I finished IGCSE-level physics, I was confident. I was not expecting the step up in level when I advanced to IB — it was quite significant. That was when I realised that I really had to put in the work consistently for two years to get to the level you want to be at when you finally take the exam."
"Our teachers were also extremely helpful when it came to IB. They were so well versed in the coursework. They always let us know about any changes and made sure we had the right materials to stay up to date be prepared."
"I attended another international school before I came to Wellington. The sports programme there was very much set on football, rugby and track. But when I came to Wellington, nothing was set in stone. They were willing to try new things and offered lots of sports I had never played, like volleyball and cricket."
"I ended up going to Malaysia to play cricket for the school, and I started playing volleyball as well. That's one of my favourite sports now. In fact, everyone here who I play volleyball with is very similar. They had started playing volleyball when they came to Wellington. It was a completely new team, but the coaching staff was really supportive. They even hired specialists to train us up. We ended up doing really well in a sport that was still new to us. We placed third at our last ACAMIS tournament."
"I came here as a year 7 pupil, and the school was new. Obviously, going to a new school is intimidating, but I did not feel that here, because I always reminded myself that everyone here was new. That made it a lot easier to make friends. Over the years, we became a big school, but in other ways, we have remained small, tightly knit. I am still very close friends with everyone in my cohort, for instance, and I think that is a really good thing because friends are important."
I have applied to KU Leuven in Belgium, where I am from. It is a really good school for engineering, which is good for me because that is exactly what I want to do. Right now, I am steered towards chemical engineering. I discovered my passion for chemistry when we started taking IGCSE courses. I found myself always looking forward to chemistry class. Then, when I started taking chemistry classes in IB, it suddenly got a lot more complicated and interesting."
"Also, my family is full of engineers. My father is an engineer, and my brother is at KU Leuven studying engineering right now. It is a little bit annoying when people say that I copied him, but I am genuinely interested in chemistry."
"A degree in chemical engineering opens you up to a lot of different career paths in which you can help a lot of people. You can go into pharmaceuticals or environmental engineering. And, of course, there are the big money options, like petroleum. Right now, pharmaceuticals interest me the most."
"Try new things. Step out of your comfort zone. You never know what you might enjoy. We have the facilities and the staff here to make this possible, and you will always have support. Take advantage of it!"
Are you on a quest for success, too? Wellington is now accepting applications for the 2021-22 academic year. To learn more about how to apply, please scan the QR code below.
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