The pros and cons of studying in an IB board

As someone who just graduated from the International Baccalaureate (IB) board, I have really strong views about it - not all bad either. Flashback to two years ago, all my seniors were scaring the daylights out of me when I was choosing my subjects. My counsellor was shadowing me everywhere and my parents were fretting about how this was the 'most important decision of my life'. To be honest, it wasn't. But it was the most important decision for my happiness for the next two years.

The first thing, I learned about IB was that it was versatile. You could do Art and Physics, Environmental Science and Film. But most students, for some unknown reason, chose to stay within specific molds. My close friend took Physics, Chemistry and Math at a higher level because it seemed like a 'smart decision', when in fact, I felt, you should simply choose subjects that you really love and want to learn. The IB is only difficult if you chose it to be in the first place.

Going ahead in the year, things started to get slightly hectic. Assignments due, Extended Essay (EE) first drafts, Internal Assessments (IA). I realised that IB is a course that takes time to adjust to. For example, most Indians I knew had never even written an essay on their laptop before. Even when writing an essay, we were expected to be eloquent and formal in our writing, which proved to be a challenge for most students. So the second thing I learned about IB: you always need to sound fancier than you are. Since IB barely has situations where we had to remember word for word, we had to start formulating well-articulated responses ourselves, which can sometimes be harder than simply memorising and writing.

Keeping up with time was the toughest lesson we learned. All through 11th grade, getting good grades seemed relatively achievable, and I was more or less up to task, till grade 12 semester-1. The day before I left for summer, one of my (very) dramatic teachers said, "The word vacation is not part of the IB dictionary". Little did I know that she was right. Due dates hit me in the face on my first day back. Teachers stop asking about summer and start asking for IAs, your EE supervisor is hunting you down every three periods and let's not even start with the IB coordinator. We started to pull all nighters twice a week, skipped lunch to complete work we had forgotten about. Our teachers, coordinator, parents and our unfinished to-do list were all screaming at us while we scrambled to get things done in the nick of time. Really, this was terrible.

The time finally came, then, for our final IB exams. Our whole lives had led up to this point. So, with our ugly stress pimples and purple bags under our eyes, we sat together and did nothing. That's right, we didn't study. Well, we did, but barely as much as we really should have, because at this point we were so fed up, and our applications were so over (excluding the forever-scared-UK students), that we couldn't care less anymore.

I might have regretted this a bit when my results were announced, but honestly, the IB tires you out. It may seem really 'new age' by moving past concentrating on 'just exams' and giving students more ways to prove their worth, but the whole journey is crazy. Why would I want to waste my time writing a random essay that gets you even more confused than you ever were? And the Creativity, Acitivity, Service (CAS) programme was truly unnecessary. The community service was alright, but there was no reason for page-long reflections. And extended essay... well that was just a waste of time, paper and in my case, lab apparatus. In the end, all I learned was how to take things from websites and change the words completely to make them sound like your own.

However, the IB did teach me many things. It taught me how to write a real essay without sounding colloquial, how to use the Internet to its full potential, how to make very strong coffee, how to write a 3000-word essay in five hours, and how to keep up with all my due dates. Just kidding, even the IB couldn't do that. So all in all, while the IB can be a little overwhelming and slightly pointless, I can honestly say it did prepare me for university, and that's what it promised all along.