today we're talking about my experience with the International Baccalaureate
program. I'd like to share a little advice on what I wish I had known going
into the program and maybe would have helped me stay a little bit less
stressed, calmer, or saner throughout the entire process. Just in case you want to
know, I took HL history, HL English literature,
HL Spanish B, SL psychology, SL physics, and SL math. Number one: don't do it just
because of college credit. I think there's a lot of misinformation
surrounding just how much college credit you get from doing IB.
I can only get credit at Cornell if I get 7 s and only in HL. Oh but not in HL
history and not an HL language B, so I can only get credit for one class and
I have to get a 7 in HL English which is crazy. Just focusing on the payoff in
terms of college credits led to a breakdown when I realized I wasn't
getting college credit. It was really upsetting that like it didn't seem like
Cornell appreciated the hard work I had put in for my education already, but if I
had focused going into the IB on what I was learning, the skills I was gaining,
how much more I could analyze and process, I think I would have had a much
more fruitful experience. What really matters is I feel very prepared for
college even if my credits don't reflect that. Number two: take the extended essay
seriously, but do not be intimidated by it. My school really stressed having a
rough draft of the extended essay done the summer before your senior year, so I
spent the entire night before I left for Tajikistan writing my extens essay. The
draft was 7,000 words long, but it was so
garbage. Because I had this absolute monster of an essay, I felt so
overwhelmed when I came back from Tajikistan, that I didn't work on my
extended essay for a while and then I had like four months of just like trying
to understand what it meant, but I feel like if I had waited and not gone with
the advice of finishing it before the beginning of senior year, and really went
through my research again and then wrote
it when I got back, it would have been
much more manageable and coherent. Don't block out an absurd amount of time to do
your extended essay because you're just prolonging the experience and making it
harder than it needs to be. Also, don't hate on the extended essay it's long, but
it's a really good learning experience and it'll make literally anything else
you write feel so short. Number three: keep it interesting for yourself. If you
know you want to major in math it's gonna be really hard to focus and do
well on your history IA just because you don't care. That's kind of what I felt
about a lot of the assignments and IAs because I didn't really care about
anything, I just wanted to think about hotels writing an IA that you don't care
about is going to be hellish, but the good thing about the IA is you can make
it really interesting for yourself by picking a interesting topic. I love all
things revenue management so for my math IA, I analyzed the mathematical equations
used by airlines in overbooking. Because I was genuinely interested in these
topics, it was so much easier to do a really good job on these IAs and give
really high marks. So pick something you're interested in but be really
careful that you don't make it harder for yourself then you need to. Number
four: don't believe horror stories from past IB kids. One of my older friends
said that IB physics was impossible if you weren't great at math. Not being
great at math is one of my strong suits, so I was really worried, but I found that
I really liked physics and it wasn't that much math. So, trust your intuition
and allow your own experiences to guide you towards other experiences.
Don't rely on other people's opinions.
Number five: senior year is tough. And it's easy to think like IB doesn't
matter, like, why am I working this hard. But I think if you focus on what you're
learning don't think about I'm working hard to get seven marks on this exam
think about how hard you're working towards bettering yourself and making
your brain super strong. Then I think it's a lot easier to deal with the
difficulty of IB. Number six: prioritize college applications before your IB work
it's super easy to get dragged down by your IAs, your history homework, everything
on the day to day basis that you don't devote a lot of time to college
applications. I kept thinking I'm gonna care a lot
more when I'm an adult about what college I went to versus my high school
GPA. Number eight: don't let the IB run your life if you're
in the IB then you're probably a pretty high achieving student and you want to
go to a good college. Great! But be cautious of being so overrun with IB
work that you're not taking other opportunities. What schools really want
to see is that you can deal with a rigorous curriculum and a life, but if
you're just focusing on one of those aspects, then you're not really helping
yourself. For example, I quit my job at a hotel the summer before my first year of
IB because I thought I wouldn't be able to handle a job and the IB curriculum.
Which may have been true, but I really could do it. It wasn't until later when I
realized I need to work at that hotel to get into Cornell that I went back right
before IB exam season. You know it was fine,
the day before my IB physics exam I worked an eight-hour shift and I got a
six in physics. Don't let IB limit your opportunities. Number.... no I said math
wasn't my strong suit so. Be proud of the work you're doing and how hard you're
working. It's easy not to feel proud of the IB work you're doing when it's so
go-go-go, the next thing, the next deadline, like it's always happening
but you should feel proud a lot of teens aren't devoting that effort and
dedication to their education, but you are and that's pretty cool. Number ten:
overall for whatever reason it is to you, learn to love IB because it's really
easy to get into the kind of like I hate IB, I hate how hard I work, I hate all the
difficulties, that's not gonna help you make it easier and that's not gonna help
you succeed. There are always gonna be things that you don't want to do or that
you don't like, but you just need to learn how to cope with it. Instead focus
on what you really like about IB whatever it is embrace it.
Then when you're done you can make in IB pinata and really go ham on it.
That's what I did.
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