Any IB students here...

or former IB students? 

I've been one and was wondering if anyone here in CC used to do IB. For those who don't know what IB is it stands for International Baccalaureate. And anyone who did the IB or is doing it will intimately know the pains we face =P.

So anyone?

At the magnet school I attend, we don't have an IB program, but every course we take has to be either honors or AP. There are no regular courses offered at my school. Next year I'll be taking three honors and three AP classes. I'm having mixed feelings about it, but have chosen not to detest junior year until I delve into it. 

YES oh my gosh I'm not alone. IB is torture, no, seriously :)

I'm in my second year of IB now (we had an introductory year last year, so we do three years of it) and man it's really piling up. I swear I've hardly done any CAS whatsoever. TOK makes me want to hit small children. I'm actually looking forward to EE, though... call me crazy but I like writing essays 

WOOO finally found an IBer =D

Extended essay didn't kill me as much as others (hint: procrastination). Keep this rule in mind, type like 300 words a day for any essay that your supposed to do after it's assigned. That way your not stuck procrastinating and staying up all night.

TOK is AWESOME my english teacher, who teaches us TOK, really knows what he's doing and is amazing. TOK can be a brain breaker in alot of days XD. C

CAS was also a pain in the bender, though I barely managed to pull it off ;P

SOOOOOO if you have concerns about IB you can ask a good ol' veteran like myself =D.

Plus I sure hope there are more IB students here. Though it's a shame tabby couldn't take IB...I'm sure you'd enjoy it ;)

ACH! I'm in the middle of the IB now (end of year 11). It's challenging, but good I think. I've been trying to motivate myself to get to work on my EE but I just can't bring myself to do it :P I also have ALOT of work to do in the science department, Chemistry HL was NOT a good idea!

I got a 4 in chemistry HL XD

My chem teacher sucks BIG TIME, I tell ya the only thing she's good at in class was copying from the text-book, which was also useless. And the labs, OMG it's a disaster, she procrastinated the lab on us under the delusion that we'll be alright and guess what WE WEREN'T OUR LABS WERE CRAP. God don't get me started on my chem teacher cuz she brings out the worst of me. She did the worst of worst things to us.

So anyway...what did you guys take in IB?

I took:

Bio HL

Chem HL

ITGS HL

Math studies (though I used to be in SL, I dropped to concentrate on chem)

English A1

Arabic B

EE subject: english

IB had such fun days...god heres the worst day in my IB life. 2 months before the official IB exams and my chem teacher just thought of giving us the labs. And there are only 2 chem HL students XD. Yep thats right 2 out of 9 people who took IB. Our class was 20 in total and about half were bio-chem students. So anyways, on the last week of march on monday we did the lab before the last HL lab, by then we were done with SL labs (which btw she never gave us an extension considering we were also working on HL labs). and she said that she was going to be expecting the labs THE NEXT DAY, which was senior skip-day, and on top of all that she wanted us to show up and do lab. My partner and I were the ONLY seniors who showed up. And I never slept that night because I was TRYING to finish the labs. Demented with caffeine I barely put myself together to go to school the next day and I didn't even finish my work. So all day we sat in the library doing our labs, typing our ***es off. So when it was time to do our last chem lab she denied ever saying that she wanted them that day. Worst of all it was the same day we found out that she wasn't even going to asses the HL labs, only the SL labs that we worked on.

Having said all this, for those who have great science teachers, appreciate them do your work on time. This is a perfect example of one day out of 2 years of how an un-certified IB teacher (or normal teacher) teaches us. She's only been in the work-shop for a week and they consider her "an IB teacher" and our IB moderater didn't do anything to her. He didn't sit in class to check her, we brought countless people to sit in class including the curriculum coordinator yet they haven't changed her. And btw that's just the tip of the ice-berg I don't even want to start telling you of all the crap we've went through XD

All in all, I thank god for how I did, and never ever lose hope even when things get rough. IB likes getting rough =) So any stories of your everyday IB life is MORE THAN WELCOME IN THIS THREAD XD I shared one of mine. And I LOVE IB, it taught me alot of things...TOK especially. It's an awesome experience that no person should miss, among the torture comes a blessing =). And for the record, I love every IBer who went through IB. Because I feel like we're connected in one way or another. And in some way every IB student regardless of race, age, gender has what I like to call "the universal problems". Procrastination comes to mind...which is a sweet poison. Sometimes you can't beat the feeling. Though if you really imagine how you'd be like the day before your assignment is due, would you really wanna spend all night miserable and typing your essay? When you could've spent half an hour everyday working on it and getting it done with the best results =).

Just think about it ;)

Hahaha yeah I really need to not procrastinate. I'm getting better, I swear!

:)

I do...

ESS SL

Math studies

English HL

Film & Television HL

Theatre Arts HL

French Ab Initio

And I'm thinking my EE subject will be Film!

Wow! Your chemistry teacher sounded soooo horrible! And having to stay in school on senior skip day to work on chemistry labs is the stuff of nightmares (especially considering I live in Germany and senior skip day is spent at the Oktoberfest ) My problem is not so much that I have a bad teacher, in fact he's an awesome teacher. I just don't think that Chemistry HL was the right course for me. I'm really more orientated toward the humanities intellectually, and this class has just been torture. I studied more for my final chemistry exam than I've ever studied for anything in my life and I still only managed a 4. Next year we get a new teacher, but I'm not really sure how much a difference it will make.

Funnily enough though, the only really hectic IB story I can think of at the moment had nothing to do with Chem but English. I'm doing English A1 HL and my teacher can only be described as pompous, lazy, and self-absorbed. We've spent about 75% of our classes just sitting around talking about whatever random subject he chooses, which admittedly is kind of fun at the start but quickly gets old when you realize you haven't learned/accomplished anything at all over the course of the year. Anyway, earlier on in the year I attended THIMUN (The Hague International Model United Nations maybe some of you have been?) during which I missed a week of school. As you all know missing a week of IB classes is pretty much a death sentence in terms of workload, and one of the biggest assignments I had to finish while in the Hague was my World Lit. 1 paper draft. So I, being the relatively conscientious student I am, lugged four books and my laptop and crap all the way to Holland (not that far but humor me) just to work on this paper only to watch as my fellow less committed IBers get indefinite extensions on their papers just because my teacher decided he didn't feel like grading it.

Suffice it to say, I was not pleased.

Oh, And my courses are History HL, English A1 HL, Chemistry HL *cringe*, Theater SL, Math SL, and German B SL in case anyone wa wondering

Ouch =S I honestly don't know what to day...alot of students here end up just like you elle, taking subjects they don't like

because the only other subjects you can take in our school other than what I already listed is: business and management, mathematics SL, and environmental science SL.

Our school is pretty crappy and unfit to teach IB...which was a source of everyone's nightmare. Talk to your IB coordinator...maybe he can help you drop chem HL to SL and take German B HL?

Another story I could remember, the english exam. It's not much of a story though it is kinda funny, so it was our first exam of all the others. We were all basically ****ing on our seats because we didn't know what to expect. Half of us were laughing under our breath as the IB coordinator was cutting the plastic bag containing the sacred pieces of paper that would decide our future =P So when he did finally hand out the exam, this girl was sneezing constantly for 20 minutes...which didn't help me concentrate at all btw. But what can you do...

Whats film and telivision like? I heard there was IB dance is it true XD?

Yes! Fellow IB students who can understand the suffering that occurs in class and at home when doing homework.. I just finished my first year of IB, and I think I gained quite a few pounds from sitting in front of my computer in the middle of the night typing papers..

Contrary to most other people here, I LOVED doing CAS work. Hahah. I dunno, I'd just much rather be out doing anything than homework.

Next year I'm taking Bio HL without having taken Chemistry. There was this massive scheduling mess-up that happened when I transferred schools, blah, blah, but long story short.. Any words of wisdom for Bio? Or if I might have a hard time surviving it?

Original Post by qwertysicle:

 I just finished my first year of IB, and I think I gained quite a few pounds from sitting in front of my computer in the middle of the night typing papers..

 

I totally agree!!  All those late nights when all you can think about is finishing your essay and eating chocolate :P.  

The school I go to does IB differently than most schools I think, for instance, we have Pre-IB Classes that you take in 9th and 10th grade and this past year as a 10th grader I took 3 IB and 3 PIB classes =-/.  Next year I'm pretty sure school is going to kick my ass haha. 

Is anyone taking/ has anyone taken the SL World History test? or the HL Math one? I'm quite nervous for those two!!

Oh and the ones im taking!

HL Math

HL Biology

HL Engligh

SL French 

SL Chemistry 

SL History (ewwww)

Also, does anyone have any out of the box or different EE topics? I've heard some really odd ones from some of my friends who just finished the program

Good Luck everyone!!! 

Oh I got loads of words of wisdom for bio =P

First off make sure you know your stuff after EVERY bio class. Like...we have a really hard-working bio teacher, but no one can deny that her explanations are absolute crap. Alot of the info doesn't makes sense, and she basically hammers the info on our heads by endlessly describing everything and going into more detail to the point where we go off topic...yes our school is employs teachers THAT aweful.

Plus studying bio at the last minute is really not enough because it's too much info. Though the only difference between HL and SL is the amount of details you have to study, it's quite fun =)

Heres a learning strategy I'd like to share with you:

Say you have to memorize a huge process like cellular respiration? Or DNA replication (which was my personal pain in the ***)? Now what I do is list the enzymes involved and their funtions. The rest is a piece of cake! BECAUSE, without the enzymes half of the process wouldn't happen.

According to many I looked under-weight during IB...I guess that was because I barely ate...which was true for the most part XD. A lifestyle of caffeine, caffeine, and caffeine had it's effect =). But not I guess I "look normal", and being the IB students that you are you'd tell me "DEFINE NORMAL?!" XD

Oh...and I'd like to mention that chemistry HL is harder than math HL...heck my math teacher said it and she taught math HL. And she's awesome [in teaching]...but aweful bed-side manners =P.

epurcell1976: Chocolate was definitely a daily thing. It's cool that your school offers pre-IB classes. At my school, there was "pre-IB Government" for 10th graders, but it was actually just AP Government. One of my friends is doing her EE on peanuts, I think.. I can't go into detail since I don't remember what she said, but it was something really odd

mr_omario: Thanks for your help! Hopefully I won't entirely fail Bio.. And I don't think that ANY IB student is completely normal. We all have to be slightly crazy to even sign up :D

Original Post by qwertysicle:

. One of my friends is doing her EE on peanuts, I think.. I can't go into detail since I don't remember what she said, but it was something really odd

Woah! Thats so intense!  I bet thats a lot more interesting than the topics a lot of people choose, but man, writing a whole essay on peanuts? I'd prolly never want to eat another one ever again

I'm starting EE next week! Aaah so nervous/excited. I've always known what I wanted to write about, though: Peter Pan Syndrome and its portrayal in the mainstream media. Or something like that, hahaa.

Should be good :)

**** yeah man i hate ib .

Former IB student here! Actually I just took the exams in may, and I'm off to university now in less than a month.

I did:

English A1 SL
Spanish B SL
Chemistry SL

Math HL
Physics HL
Geo HL

IB killed me. I did way better than expected though, so it was probably worth the few extra pounds, sleep issues, and temporary depression =p

Anyone who needs advice, feel free to PM me if you'd like =]

EDIT to add, I absolutely despised TOK, ended up with around 250 or so hours for CAS, and did my EE in geogrphy

I'm in IB! except I'm only certificate so I really don't have too much to worry about! =].  I'm just taking spanish, english anddd TOK. which is a waste of my lifeeee