Another inspiring story a former Amsterdam International Community School student. This week we hear from Clara Gradel, who is currently teaching at an international school in India.
 

“Don't let anyone hold you back, especially yourself.”

I joined AICS in 2010 (MYP3) and stayed until graduating from DP in 2015. After graduation, I went directly into university. I started with a Prep Year at the Royal Academy of Arts (KABK) in The Hague because after many applications and interviews I realised I needed to build a stronger Art portfolio. Afterward, I pursued a Bachelor in Interactive Media Design at the same university. Later followed by a Master in Experimental Publishing at Willem de Kooning Academy in Rotterdam. After working for a year, I completed a Postgraduate in Education-International, from Birmingham City University at their abroad campus in Bengaluru.

I am currently living in Bengaluru, India. I stayed after completing my Post Graduate here, as I received job offers. I now work as a School Designer and Design Thinking Teacher at Indus International School Bangalore, where I create and implement an Innovation Curriculum based on Design Thinking for students from PYP to DP.

One of my fondest memories from AICS is spending time in Art class and the library. In DP, one of our Art classes essentially became a studio where we could work freely on our projects. And the Librarian although I can’t recall his name, I will always remember. I would always have a spot to go to and get away from the stress and he always helped me with finding and providing books I was interested in. I also have great memories of our geography field trip, especially all the laughing from the crazy things happening when we collected river samples, it was an incredible experience.

To current students, I would say: You can go anywhere, do anything and be anyone. Don’t let anyone hold you back, especially yourself. You’ll get stuck, you’ll have blank page moments and you’ll fail, but that means you tried and you learned.