I struggled a lot going into the IB and I feel a strong regret for many very small things I could've done before getting into IB/actually starting to work on my assignments so I wanted to transfer some of the knowledge I had in the IB to you so you don't feel the same regret and pain I did by avoiding very small errors that have big consequences. In this article I will be telling you about the mistakes to avoid in the IB and the mindset you should keep to avoid procrastination and consistent motivation. Without further ado, lets get started.
Listen to advice
It's ironic to write this on an advice post, I know yet it still is something that has to be addressed. You probably heard the phrase so many times "IB is a rigorous programme" and when they say this, they mean it. I don't know what school curriculum reader may be coming from but I can tell you that as someone who lived with the already (and for no reason at all - other than competitiveness) rigorous Turkish education system, I would do anything to have the coursework from the Turkish school system back. IB has an incredible amount of work for you to complete, your teacher will move on this deadline they set up in their heads for all of the students and will try to prepare you for your IAs without telling you it's for your IAs or any other IB assignments and will assign you work outside of what IB assigns the student. As a student its the best that you follow most of what your teacher says but be aware and know why they are assigning you a piece of work that IB doesn't directly will grade. To work on what your teachers give + the work IB assigns + keeping up with your actual human life, you have to manage your time. So for this please follow advice, there is an overwhelming amount of ib advice that exists on the internet both on youtube and other platforms, I will even link my playlist of ib advice for you, just take notes, listen and reflect.
2. Your teachers are probably not qualified
This is an ugly truth about the IB, if IB is one thing, it's confusing for everyone. You will probably encounter one or several teachers who don't know much about the IB and may say things about the IB that are not said with bad intentions but are just straight up not true, for example my biology teacher approved my Biology IA research question because she doesn't really know what the animal policy of IB is, and it's actually a pretty strict policy prohibiting animal experimentations of any kind and I would not know this until I read somewhere that the biology teacher has to share with us the ib animal policy and asked her for the documents and then found out. I learned most of the things I know about the IB and how to overcome the challenges of the coursework by consulting the internet, there are a lot of forums for an IB student to go, for example the r/IBO and it's respective discord server or the student led and IB collaborative ib.lieve on instagram. Don't be afraid to consult the sources online, or ask your teacher when you are stuck but always and always check the truthfulness of your source and take the official IB documentations as your primary resource. Now this may not apply to you if you go to a school with teachers who specialized in IB, who know what the IB wants from the student and so on.
3. time moves so much faster when you grow up
Now we are in a strange time where everything just kind of happened and years went without anyone ever noticing because we were too busy coping and last you were told about this 2 week holiday because there was a virus spreading and you're... you're halfway through high school?? Yeah, that happened. You will unfortunately now find time to be this very quick thing that you can kill a bit too easily, it's impossible to make it stop or live it to its full importance and you cannot take back your sense of time you had as a kid. You will have to make your peace with this fact that life from now on is happening too fast, in a speed you can only catch up in the most boring tasks of life, mundane tasks like doing the dishes and cleaning your room. In this case mindfulness is one of the most important skills you can cultivate, taking time to meditate for a few minutes everyday at this stage of your life will not only lower your levels of stress but will give you a sense of time, it will be one of the rare things that give you a sense of stillness and grounding. The IB unfortunately doesn't really recognize these crucial years of growing and they are not going to give you the time you need to process everything that is happening, which I will now talk more in depth about.
4. The IB is NOT a 2 year programme
Let me explain myself, the ib is indeed 2 years long yes, but you will not take 2 school years to do your school work or study for your exams. In fact, you have so little time, you would be shocked. Like I mentioned in the first and second tip, your teacher will probably have this schedule that they are following in their head and giving you assignments aimed to get you acquainted with what the IB wants from you (which is good yes, but not every student will/can follow the set of internal deadlines the teachers planned) This will take so much of your time, I ended up more confused by the overwhelming amount of homework I recieved and I couldn't spend time actually figuring out what the IB waited from the candidate (yes you're not a student but a candidate for a diploma) you have to know that whatever your teachers are throwing at you are for a purpose, it will be incredibly important for you to recognize exactly what that homework is meant for, maybe its just to get to know the style or format of an assignment or to get you to acquire a specific skill that will be useful in the future. After figuring out what your teachers want from you, you should research what the IB asks of you and I would suggest doing this first thing as you step into the IB programme, if you can, PREPARE BEFORE STARTING THE PROGRAM. I cannot stress this enough, if I knew that I would be starting the IB this year, I would've studied the criterias for all of the assignments I have. When you master these two things (which aren't really separate), you should figure out how much time it will take you to finish these assignments. Here's what you should know, if you're SL in a class, most likely, once you cover the SL topics in year 1 and finish IAs, you are free to do whatever next year in that class hour because you don't have to anything else but prepare for your exams and focus on your HLs -which will take much more time than your SL classes-.
5. You have free will
You are free to do whatever you want and at the end, you are responsible for everything you do. A special opportunity like being in the IB will open an incredible amount of opportunities to you. if you're taking visual arts, you will be putting together an exhibition on any artistic topic you want to cover and the IB is like, write an essay for 4 thousand words and it can be anything as long as its related to your school work somehow. How cool is that??? You're in the CAS program because of the IB, go volunteer, start a youtube channel, create a dance routine, write a song!! You are capable of anything as long as you have a plan and you're realistic. For IB and for my own pleasure I've entertained countless speeches, presentations and lots of artistic creations. I literally gave a presentation on books I enjoyed which you can read from - here - and made my whole class listen to me talk about the books I liked for this. I will continue to use the IB as an excuse for my undying urge to create and learn more and you should too. Take advantage of the IB, and most importantly live to your hearts fullest content to avoid Regrets. All the best of luck to you in your IB journey!!!
Comments