There’s a funny page on Uncyclopedia about the International Baccalaureate program featuring a quote from Gandalf on IB:
You shall not pass!
Well, as of 2 o’ clock today, I officially finished my career as an IB student, completing the final paper for HL Math. Some of my friends who have Physics and/or Computer Science will be done by Wednesday or Friday, respectively. In any case, we’re all more or less done.
This is where I reminisce about my past four years and talk about either how much of a hassle high school was (it wasn’t that bad) or how much I’ll miss the great times I had (indeed they were great, but I probably won’t miss them much). I imagine university will be more or less the same flavour of mostly self-directed learning as IB has prepared me for, with living on my own in residence as the main/only real significant change.
I think non-IB people out there have a misconception about IB and what it is. I myself thought it was like extended French or intensive Math programs, only for everything. It’s not so much a program for extra-elitist people, and it’s not like the gifted program at Woburn CI. It’s surprisingly not that much different from the regular Ontario stuff, except that we write standardized exams (broken up into sections that we call “papers”) and our marks are then used to apply everywhere. In terms of difficulty and depending on which subjects you’re talking about, IB can be harder or easier than the regular OSSD courses. For one thing, the IB standard Biology is way easier than the Ontario curriculum, as is standard Physics. The only courses worth bawling about are higher Math and Chemistry, but even then, they’re not too bad if you’re willing to actually learn the stuff.
Higher and standard level usually don’t differ by too much, excepting that higher level stuff has more depth and more or less the same breadth in terms of materials. Also, if you do well enough in higher courses, universities will usually accept a HL IB credit as equivalent to a first year credit. I’m personally going to have to find out whether whatever I got in Chemistry, Math, and English will be good enough for me to skip first year courses in those three areas (which usually means I’d need a level 6 or 7). I really don’t feel like doing English or Math (specifically, Calculus) anymore.
People say IB kids end up with no social lives due to the large amounts of homework and labs we have to do, but I can testify to quite the opposite. I really don’t think my life has been particularly difficult or packed by IB stuff, be it with homework, assignments, lab reports, essays, or whatever the teachers feel like throwing at us, and I didn’t even skimp too much on doing the optional work. It’s not as bad as some people will have you think. I think people in IB like to hyperbolize about their workload or the studying they just have to do mostly to be self-important. I know IB kids who get those magical level 7′s (i.e. perfect score in IB) with little to no effort and kids who get the same or worse with days (or you know, weeks and months) of studying and wrecked social lives. Like with anything, there’s natural talent or exceeding sponginess versus solid studying or needed diligence to account for lack thereof. Of course, there are also smart people who also work hard, so yeah, those are there too but most people (who do well at least) are either one or the other.
Of all the exams this year and last (I had standard Economics and French exams last year), I’d say the easiest one had to be, surprisingly enough, Chemistry–known to usually be absolutely the worst exam ever. As for difficulty for me, it would have been Math hands down, while puking blood, and having someone kicking me in the nuts, but not having had food in days, and then one guy is punching your soul in the face. Something like that. Actually, if it weren’t for the advanced Calculus P3 and one or two befuddling questions in P1 and P2, Math wasn’t all that bad either. Again, none of them were particularly challenging as wholes, but it’s just one or two stellar “What do I do?!” questions.
I studied the most for last year’s French exam of all of my exams and the least (next to none) for Biology–not because I thought I wouldn’t need to (which is more than slightly arrogant), but other stuff came up and I figured sleep would benefit me better than cramming, which never works for me anyway. I am actually undecided whether I should be overjoyed that with a bit of focused review I could do as decent as I think I did, or severely concerned about my complete lack of “proper” study habits. I’m leaning for the former, since I’d much rather sing my didn’t and dance my did.
All in all, it’s been an interesting past four years and I sure am glad I stuck with what I chose. I don’t know how much “real” advantage doing IB has given/will give me over the average OSSD student, but I can’t imagine that it’ll be a huge deal now and especially not in a year or two. I’m glad for having gone into this program, because if I hadn’t I wouldn’t have made the wacky friends I have or been exposed to the same kind of atmosphere elsewhere. Without comparison to people in the normal branches of schooling, I think most people if not everyone (myself included of course) in Victoria Park’s IB class of 2008 are freaks and quirky characters, and even though I definitely wouldn’t say I got on with all or even a lot of them, I’m still rather enthused at having met the people I have. I’m going to stop here before I get all e-sentimental or e-incriminating.
And just to spite you regular TDSB students, I’m going to be having the greatest week and half with a promising early vacation starting promptly after Amy’s Physics exam while you pitiable souls languish in your schooling for one more grueling, painful month and some. Enjoy, because I know I will.