Students often refer to the International Baccalaureate (IB) program as the ultimate Faustian bargain–you'll undergo one of the most academically enriching experiences that the modern education system has to offer…in exchange for surrendering any hope of fostering a balanced social lifestyle. In reality, of course, were the horror stories of these academic sweatshops true, IBO (International Baccalaureate Organization) would soon cease to exist. As with most educational institutions, receiving the IB diploma is contingent on the development of effective study and time management skills, the ability to recognize one's strengths and weaknesses, and an extended effort to build a network of peers, parents, and teachers that students can utilize in times of need. As a successful IB graduate, I can offer the following five pieces of advice to students who are about to embark on the IB journey:
First, invest a significant amount of time to developing an effective time management system. The issue is rarely that IB students have an exorbitant amount of short-term homework due the next day–largely, it's that there is a wide variety of long-term projects that can all be due on the same day but that are also assigned several days, sometimes even weeks, in advance. The Extended Essay, which students begin writing in the summer of their senior year, for example, is only a challenging project to the extent that you have to develop a clear long-term strategy to help you refine a research question, perform the necessary research, and finally produce a 4,000 word essay. If you begin your research a week before the entire rough draft is due, of course you'll end up feeling overwhelmed. Should you choose to work for an hour a day for several weeks of your summer, there is little stopping you from receiving a top mark. Moral of the story: procrastinators either achieve top marks but struggle the most or, in most cases, are the students who fall behind, struggle, and still don't fully maximize their potential.
Second, take advantage of the resources that the IB community makes available. If you're struggling with a class, for example, you can purchase a subject guide, either from IB directly or a company that specializes in publishing textbooks tailored to the IB curriculum, such as Pearson Baccalaureate. Some schools have guidance counselors who specifically focus on IB students, so be sure to pay a visit to the guidance office once in a while. Finally, when it comes time to take the IB exams, you can actually purchase past IB exams (along with answers) from the IBO. In fact, there are even a few websites that provide these exams for free, though there is some question of copyright infringement if you choose to download the exams without paying.
Third, establish a supportive social network. My 11th grade calculus teacher told me that every single one of his students in the class had the phone number and email of every other student. To that end, work to develop social skills from day one of your IB career! It is impossible, I repeat, impossible to go through IB alone without having a mental breakdown at one point or another. Hold study groups before a test, join your school message boards to interact with students in your class, etc. The key point here is that everybody struggles at one point or another–having the opportunity to talk to someone who is in the exact same situation as you may make the entire episode much more bearable.
Fourth, be both strategic and honest with yourself in choosing your classes. Colleges often emphasize that they want their applicants to take the most demanding curriculum that their high school offers–by being enrolled in the IB program, regardless of what actual IB classes you take and at what level (higher or standard), you've already proven that you can handle college level coursework. What's more, if you're a passionate about psychology but you're applying to schools such as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) or California Institute of Technology (CalTech), don't feel as though you have to give up the study of Bruner's theory of development for photonics and vectors. A successful IB graduate is a well-rounded thinker who can easily synthesize inter-disciplinary information. More and more schools, in fact, even those whose primary focus is the quantitative sciences, emphasize that they want their future engineers to be able to integrate information from a variety of different fields.
That being said, however, becoming well-rounded sometimes means taking a class which may not sound intuitively appealing–whether it's IB Art, IB Philosophy, or IB Business. Who knows, you may even find a new niche. Thomas Friedman, a popular foreign affairs columnist for The New York Times, for example, offers the following piece of advice: Ask your friends who their favorite teachers are. Then take those classes–regardless of the actual subject. Chances are, ten years down the road you'll remember little from the course, but having an inspirational teacher role model can leave a lasting positive influence.
Finally, remember that IB is generally reciprocal in nature–that is, you get what you put into it. From my own experience with my classmates, I know that it is possible to pass (that is, fulfill the necessary requirements and receive 24 points on the IB exams) and still party weekend after weekend for four years. At the same time, however, I had multiple classmates who put hours upon hours into studying and who are now at some of the most prestigious colleges in the world, with bright futures virtually guaranteed. In the end, as the pre-Socratic Greek philosopher Protagoras wrote, “man is the measure of all things.”
