As Grade 9 -10 Careers Day approaches, our recent Community Spotlight stars and startup founders, Thomas Beaudet and Cosmo Vollauschek (Class of 2022), reflect on how Halcyon's IB Diploma Programme prepared them for prestigious degrees and developed the resilience required to found a startup.

How Our IB Diploma Programme Opened A World Of Opportunity

Thomas and Cosmo are currently at university and they have embraced the international ethos Halcyon and the IB Diploma Programme promote. Both alumni secured places on prestigious degree programmes for which international travel is a core component - specifically to study in a variety of locations. 

Thomas’s World Bachelor in Business, delivered by the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST), has taken him to Los Angeles and next year will see him at Bocconi University, Milan. The opportunity doesn’t end there, Tom notes. “In the fourth and final year, I will return to one of these institutions” where he will have “the opportunity to specialise”.

Similarly, Cosmo’s place at the renowned ESCP Business School allowed him to “pursue this dream of travelling and immersing myself in different cultures”. His Bachelor of Science in Management has taken him to Turin, via London, before returning to Paris next year, which has allowed him “to pursue a high-quality degree while opening a world of professional opportunities internationally”.

Smoothing The Transition To University And Beyond

Thomas highlighted that his time at Halcyon meant he could transition to university smoothly. “Halcyon gave us such freedom,” comments Cosmo, “such a landscape of topics to discover and a variety of people to meet, that at University, I felt as if I was entering a very similar environment, simply at scale, such that I felt completely ready to thrive.”

Cosmo seconded this. The transition “was smooth precisely because Halcyon and the IB Diploma Programme prepared us well for this unfamiliar learning environment.” But it is not just university for which Halcyon prepared them effectively, highlights Cosmo: “When I look at what I focus on professionally today, I actually find it quite easy to trace back to the courses I took at Halcyon”.

Developing Students Who Can Lead

Thomas specifically highlights his “incredible DP Maths class” and how he will continue to use his passion for Maths when he graduates from HKUST and “enters the world of financial markets”. He credits the IB as a whole, and his English class in particular, for teaching him “to communicate through writing” - and as someone who co-leads a startup, he believes the ability to “communicate cogently” is a quality of a “good leader”.

Leadership “is something that’s embodied in more or less everything a Halcyon student is brought to do,” adds Cosmo, who also credits his English class and “so much of the critical thinking” for developing his leadership qualities. Building on this, he reiterates the importance of student autonomy, which is central to Halcyon’s approach to the IB and Wellbeing. “The autonomy Halcyon gave us forced us to experiment and try unfamiliar things. Ultimately, those are the moments where you learn the most”.

Halcyon’s delivery of the IB Diploma Programme’s Creativity, Action and Service (CAS) component is an example of the power this autonomy can have. Thomas and Cosmo’s start up, Equity - an educational board game that makes finance more fun and inclusive “was, in many ways, conceived within Halcyon’s walls, most notably during our CAS project of delivering our Personal Finance and Stock Market course”.

With Grade 9-11 Careers Day approaching, current students have an opportunity to hear from inspiring speakers and consider, in earnest, how they might begin to shape their future. Thomas and Cosmo’s experience demonstrates the importance of embracing the opportunities offered by the International Baccalaureate and the opportunities to build autonomy, which are a hallmark of Halcyon’s holistic approach to education.

Read Thomas and Cosmo's Community Spotlight Blog

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