Saif Al Suwaidi completed the IB Middle Years Programme (MYP) at the Qatar Academy – Doha and continues his studies with the IB Diploma Programme (DP).
What key skills did you develop during the MYP?
The MYP has been a pivotal influencer in my development as both a student and a lifelong learner. Whether it was analyzing cause and effect or comprehending different ways of understanding, it is nowhere near an understatement to call the MYP challenging. However, although it was challenging, it was also especially invigorating.
Fostering compassion for education, my fondest memories in the MYP always comes back to how the MYP promoted and enriched my life with a variety of tools and ways of thinking that I could employ in my everyday life. From the various projects to the multitude of perspectives one has to consider, the MYP has helped shape my unwavering curiosity and enthusiasm towards learning.
What was the focus of your MYP personal project?
My personal project was centered around the concept of color psychology. From the notions of subliminal messaging to branding and design, my personal project seeks to bring to how seemingly rudimentary elements like color can compound to impact our thinking in an array of mediums.
Although concepts like color are taken into careful consideration by many corporations, the vast majority of people all over the world are utterly blind to it. Not only did my project stand to raise awareness of the real power and sway that color has on our behaviors and responses, but it also sought to give guidance to individuals with regards to allowing them to truly understand how the world around them can affect them in a variety of unexpected ways.
"While the personal project had seemed like some undefeatable behemoth at first, once you truly envelop yourself in its process, it blossoms into a unique, challenging research-based project which allows you to encompass everything the MYP stands for: innovation, communication, and an unquenchable thirst for knowledge."
In trying to accomplish that goal, I created a visual representation in the form of an art piece alongside writing a book with approximately 40 pages, where both products work off of each other in order to further the world’s understanding of how color affects our everyday lives.
In this sense, the personal project was not just another stepping stone in the MYP – it was the chance to pursue information independently. While the personal project had seemed like some undefeatable behemoth at first, once you truly envelop yourself in its process, it blossoms into a unique, challenging research-based project which allows you to encompass everything the MYP stands for: innovation, communication, and an unquenchable thirst for knowledge.
How has the MYP contributed to your Diploma Programme (DP) experience?
As I had mentioned in my personal project report, “there is possibly no experience which supersedes the impact the process of the personal project had on my development as an IB learner in my lifelong journey.” Even now in the DP, the organizational and problem-solving skills I had attained from the personal project have been crucial to my success both in school and beyond its walls.
 at the Qatar Academy – Doha and continues his studies with the IB Diploma Programme (DP).){kind=icon}