3 Things I wish I knew before I started IB

The International Baccalaureate (IB) program is famed as being one of the most difficult high school curriculums available, offering it’s candidates the possibility of gaining admission to some of the world’s best universities and an expansive alumni network.

So if you’re considering doing IB, make sure you’re prepared by considering these following tips. Who knows, perhaps you might be your school’s next 45er.

You don’t need to be a genius.

This may come as a shock to many, since if you’re considering doing the IB I can almost guarantee that you’ve had countless people tell you that it’s one of the hardest courses you’ll ever do. In fact, IB alumni regularly told me that their university courses were a cakewalk compared to the IB.

Time and time again during my highschool career, I was told that the IB was reserved only for smart cookies. And this began to deter me from taking the course. Additionally, the subjects I liked the most (such as Math, Physics and Chemistry) were considered the hardest subjects out there — especially at higher level (HL).

I’m here to tell you that irrespective of who you are, the IB is probably not as hard as people have told you. In fact, I undertook the IB program alongside New Zealand’s national certificates and can tell you that the programs are comparable in how “hard” they are. In fact, I took all the “hardest” subjects and achieved 7s in all of them, even at HL and would still say that New Zealand’s national certificates are comparably difficult, only that they require slightly different knowledge.

I think as IB students we like to believe that we are the cleverest students in our school and continually tell tales about how we didn’t sleep in days doing our math IAs or studied for 40 hours a week — but these tales only serve to deter younger students from taking IB or taking the subjects they want to take. Thus, if you take nothing else from this article, have confidence in yourself to take the IB if it appeals to you — don’t be deterred.

You can have a social life

IB students love to talk about how they can’t have a social life because of how intensive the program is and how much time they have to spend studying. In all honesty, that’s bullshit, what it really indicates is that they have difficulty in managing their time and probably procrastinate.

Of course you won’t be able to do anything else with your life if all your time is allocated toward “studying” (really scrolling through instagram and watching tik toks), but if you consciously make the decision not to procrastinate, and make time management a priority, you can have a social life and even introduce more to your life. Over the course of the 2 years I spent doing the IB I held a part time job, competed at an international level in sport and maintained a social life.

Bang for your buck study

Following on from the previous point, it’s worth finding out what study techniques would be best for you in order to maximise the efficiency of your study routine. Personally, I never purchased a single textbook and didn’t even write notes for many of my subjects because I knew that method didn’t work for me. Instead, I found that the subject guides published by the IB, the available past papers and the hours of videos available for free on YouTube, allowed me to retain information better.

This is not to say that you should never write a note for your subjects, or buy a textbook, only that some study methods are far more time consuming, and costly, than others. Use your time in high school to experiment with different types of study and find out what works for you.

And there you go, 3 things I wish I knew before I started the IB. Taking the IB was, without a doubt, one of the best decisions I made in high school and I would encourage anyone to take the course if it appeals to them.