I did it in High school, and I liked the experience Mine was trilingual French-English-Spanish, so I had Spanish courses and advanced English courses (probably the best part). The evaluations were a bit hard to understand, though. The criteria were not always clear, so I ended up doing the assignments while having the instruction sheet in my face. It was also a pain in some classes, like arts or phys. ed. The IB evaluations in those consisted of ''explain why you painted grass green'' (without saying that grass is green, duh) or ''explain why smoking is bad for your health''. I don't know if it's taught exactly like that elsewhere, but it was fun here, despite being confusing xP
XD I'd come up with the craziest reason for why I painted the grass green, such as "Green represents the internal connection all humans have to nature. As we lay in the green grass- green being the colour of nature- we immerse ourselves in a world that, because of technology, we often neglect." >_< Idk, something like that... I could actually make a miniature book explaining answering even the strangest of questions if I wanted to. :/
I went to a high school that specifically specialized in international arts and the IB program. I personally just got done taking 4 years of Japanese, 2 of which being IB Japanese, and will continue my studies for that starting this fall in college. I almost took IB japanese however I decided to go with AP instead as IB is more presentation and discussion based whereas AP is more written based. I do know people who virtually gave up their social life and went full IB but most people only take a few of them. I was mildly interested in TOK but i had to take another IB class to be eligible for it. My school never offered Pre-IB courses. the closest were advanced courses but they were more meant as pre-AP courses however, you weren't ever required to take advanced courses to get into AP or IB classes if you didn't want to, it just kind of helps ease you into the courses than just jumping straight in them. As for those wondering, I haven't really heard of differences between AP and IB Japanese other than the tests themselves. In that respect, everything was in Japanese (including questions, possible answers, and directions) as opposed to just having a reading in Japanese.
Oh wow, that's awesome! You know, we live in the same city. Maybe I'm going to the same high school you did- It sounds exactly like mine. I am going to go full IB though, so there's a difference between us... I am studying Japanese in and outside of school. Also, when I said pre-IB, it means I'm on the course for the IB program, but it's not like my classes are that different from anyone else's- It's just that they won't be able to test for the IB program and I will, plus all my classes have to be advanced, unless the people not on the pre-IB course. I plan to study really hard and be able to take HL Japanese for my Junior and Senior year. ^_^ My friend Kiersten advises against it, but oh well!
One of my friends did IB and loved it to pieces, as she was a huge school nerd. The school that offered it was forty five minutes away, and the application program was super long, and not interesting to me at the time. Plus, I quite liked getting to choose all the courses I wanted (even though I ended up doing all my sciences, maths, and french anyways)
The International Baccalaureate? I personally did not like it when I went to a school with it. It was pretty different from all other schools I had been to and a lot of people had a harder time with it.
I did IB; it wasn't the easiest breeziest program ever, but I took some well rounded courses since that suited me best (sciences, languages, creatives), and it ended up being a pretty valuable experience. The essay writing and coursework and exams are pretty good at prepping you up for university if that's the way you want to go. To me it isn't a perfect ideal program (then again I doubt any education program is perfect for anyone), but for me personally it was a good challenge and I learned a lot. I wouldn't repeat it though, one time is enough :lol: Some stuff I learned: -Plan out everything the best you can, use a calendar and spread out the things you need to do. Last minute stuff isn't advisable...because one all nighter is fine but too many all nighters and it starts being a huge strain. -Do stuff when you get them, try and get enough sleep, work during free periods but also relax when you can. -If you're feeling too stressed it's perfectly okay to get extra help from teachers or a counsellor. Don't hold it all in yourself if you feel like you can't. -Slacking off at the start and trying to make up for it close to exams is really not a good idea. A lot of IB material is better consistently studied in the long term; e.g. do your biology notes for each unit as you're learning them, don't do all your notes in one go a few months before the final exam -Take subjects you actually enjoy because it's going to be a lot of work. And it's better to work on what you like
I graduated awhile ago though. I find it interesting to see people post what their school offered in IB. Like IB Japanese?!?! Mine had: English, French, Bio, Chem, History, Math, and TOK at the IB level. Then most of the IB kids took regular stream physics.
I was planning to do the IB, because I dont have the mental space to choose my future rn. I thought doing the IB might give me morw options+time to do that. We got told that the EE was on anything we wanted it to be for. Writing thousands of essays doesnt sound helpful for future work unless you'll be doing that like an academic or smth. Not sure about the maths I think you can either take higher or standard? My maths is a C grade at best so im not even sure i can get on this course lol. They dont do germam which sucks because its the language i have chosen for GCSE. They do ab initio Spanish, but im not sure how they would test you on your language/if they expect it to be the same level as your GCSE language even if ur only doing the IB for what, 2 years? Apparently its more impressive to have done the IB as well, not sure how true that is. In England the sciences are classed 1234567. I do all units as a Triple Science student but I dont know what level the science would be at the school, if it would be harder if they use different exam boards ect.
I was going to do the IB, but the school I went to didn't let us pick our subjects freely. I ended up only doing the English certification. Here's what I can tell you about it, though, since I (and everyone else in my class) had to go through the IB process anyway. It's a pain in the arse, and only worth it if you plan to actually use it later. If you have full availability of what courses and exams you want to take, go for it. Otherwise, I'd say don't bother. None of my former classmates got anything useful for it, English certification aside. However, and I can't stress this enough, the monograph you have to write will be extremely useful to hone your paper writing skills. From how to organise your investigation, how to plan and carry it out, how to work with several sources and deduct your own conclusions. That, for me, was a lifesaver in university.
Not sure if when you guys are saying you couldn't choose subjects you mean you couldnt choose from a vareity of IB classes or from a Vareity of subjects within an IB class (perhaps IB European history as opposed to IB US History for example) but at the school I went to, there was a vareity of classes themselves. During my last year there, we got IB Art and we offered IB language classes in Spanish, French, German, and Japanese (maybe Arabic too but im not sure). as for the different topics within a given subject, we had those too. For example, we had both IB Biology and IB Physics (maybe IB Chemistry but im not certain on that either).
