After completing my first term (semester) in IB, I can now say that I have gotten an idea of how hectic my next two years are going to be. Since I struggle with stress management, it would be a miracle if I keep control of my acne for the next two years!
Unfortunately, the subjects I am taking are not helpful for a chilled two years. I'm not saying that I signed up for this expecting that I would be at the beach every weekend, have time to paint my nails and give my room a makeover; but I wasn't expecting anything near this!
Since the name of this post is 'IB 101', I though I would introduce the demon from my perspective. And if the challenge is appealing to you, then by all means do it!
The International Baccalaureate, AKA, the IB, is a challenging course made for 16-19 year olds (basically junior and senior year of highschool). It contains 3 core elements, and 6 subjects surrounding it. I'm going to start by explaining the core elements and zooming out to the 6 subjects and the different groups etc. Each subject is graded out of 7, then your Tok and EE grades are put together to a total of 3, adding upto a grand total of 45 (amazingggg).
Core elements
Unfortunately, the subjects I am taking are not helpful for a chilled two years. I'm not saying that I signed up for this expecting that I would be at the beach every weekend, have time to paint my nails and give my room a makeover; but I wasn't expecting anything near this!
Since the name of this post is 'IB 101', I though I would introduce the demon from my perspective. And if the challenge is appealing to you, then by all means do it!
The International Baccalaureate, AKA, the IB, is a challenging course made for 16-19 year olds (basically junior and senior year of highschool). It contains 3 core elements, and 6 subjects surrounding it. I'm going to start by explaining the core elements and zooming out to the 6 subjects and the different groups etc. Each subject is graded out of 7, then your Tok and EE grades are put together to a total of 3, adding upto a grand total of 45 (amazingggg).
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| Picture from IBO website |
Core elements
- The Extended essay (EE): a 4000 word research assignment in any one of the IB subjects.
- Theory of Knowledge (ToK): basically philosophy, they focus on the questions 'why' and 'how'.
- Creativity, Action and Service (CAS): this is the easiest part in my opinion! You basically have to complete a minimum of 200 hours, across 8 outcomes, that must be contain either activity, service or creativity. However, many do struggle on this aspect if they don't do extracurricular activities anyway.
The Subjects:
There are 6 subject groups, to get the diploma, you have to do 3 subjects Higher-Level (more in depth) and 3 Standard-Level:
- Group 1: Language A1 (first language)
- Group 2: Language B(or an extra first language A2 (bilingual), second language -been studying it, not fluent, ab nitio first time ever)
- Group 3: Humanities (Geography, History, Economics, Business, Psychology, ITGS etc)
- Group 4: Experimental Sciences (Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Environmental, Sports Science)
- Group 5: Math (Maths HL, Maths SL and Maths Studies)
- Group 6: The Arts (Art, Film, Music) or another group 1-5 subject
Its a mouth full! Congrats for making it this far, hahaha.
I promise my next post will be way more interesting!
FYI-
My subjects are:
Group 1: English Language and Literature- SL
Group 2: Arabic B- SL
Group 3: History- HL
Group 4: Chemistry- HL
Group 5: Maths- SL
Group 6: Biology (grp 4)-HL
I promise my next post will be way more interesting!
FYI-
My subjects are:
Group 1: English Language and Literature- SL
Group 2: Arabic B- SL
Group 3: History- HL
Group 4: Chemistry- HL
Group 5: Maths- SL
Group 6: Biology (grp 4)-HL
