Surviving the IB

I mentioned in my first post in nearly two years that I’d been studying the IB, and at some point wanted to write a post about it. Though I’m not really sure I have any special wisdom to offer, I have now totally completely utterly finished the IB, having got my results today, and it feels wrong to have barely written about something that my life has basically revolved around for the last two years.

I started the IB in September 2016, after leaving it to the last minute to decide whether to do A-Levels at my old school sixth form or swap to the local college for IB. For those (read: 80% of the global population) who don’t have a clue what the IB is – here’s the basic rundown:

• IB stands for International Baccalaureate
• It’s equivalent to UK A-levels
• You take 6 subjects (3 standard, which is kinda like an AS level, and 3 higher which are closer to full A levels)
• You also study Theory of Knowledge and that’s examined by a presentation and essay, the grades of which are combined with the grade for a 4000-word essay on a topic of your choice to produce a score out of 3
• Each subject is out of 7 points (7=A*, 6=A etc) and adds up to 45 points
• You also have to do 50 hours each of sport, service and creative activities and a project based on these three strands which don’t have any points attached but are required to gain the diploma

So yeah, that’s what I’ve spent the last couple of years doing. IB generally has a reputation for being quite challenging (aka bloody difficult), but I remember thinking in the first term that it really wasn’t very hard?? I think I actually asked my tutor if I had missed some massive chunk of work or something? Turns out, they just make the first term easy and then start piling on the work after Christmas, and don’t really stop – the summer holidays were basically an extra term, because exams are really early on in May.

Second year was especially hard – it seemed like there was coursework after coursework, then mocks, then oral exams, and it just never ended – if anything, reaching the final exams was a relief because all we had to be doing was revising! It was especially tough at some points too when there were issues with my coursework due to various teachers, and it felt like I was working myself to the bone only for everything to go wrong. That was one of the reasons I actually burst into tears when I opened my results – I was so scared all the work I put in would be for nothing, like with some of my coursework, that it was such a shock for it to actually be reflected in my results. Even thinking about my score now I’m starting to happy cry!!

IB was an amazing experience though. Yes, it was hard and felt like it was never going to end, but the feeling of achievement at finishing it – and with a score above my predicted grades and way above what I even dreamt of achieving – is the best feeling I’ve ever had, and possibly the proudest I’ve ever been of myself. I’ve formed some amazing friendships – what can I say, there’s nothing to bond a group of 40 teenagers like two years of academic hell – and would do it again (only slightly ironic given I spent two years mocking a poster which quoted someone saying they would absolutely choose to do IB again). It was a crazy couple of years, and I’m honestly not sure I know how to relax anymore, but it taught me how much stronger I am than I thought, and how I can do so much more than I think I can.

I think the best way to describe IB would be in the words of an ex-student who came in to talk to us at the start of second year – prior to this we’d just had visits from students who scored 45 and made a career out of giving study advice to IB students, so this guy who scored around 32 was a breath of fresh air. He told us honestly that second year was going to be shit – that we would be so stressed we’d burst into tears at knocking a cup of tea over (though this is indeed a very sad occasion) and that it would be hideously difficult at times, but he also said that the feeling of putting your pen down after the final exam and knowing you’d survived the IB – even if you didn’t pass it – would make it all worth it. That advice really kept me going in the last few months, and is so, so true. There’s probably some deep analogy for the struggles of life in there, but I’ll leave that as a mystery, seeing as my brain has now officially signed out for summer!

I have no idea if this post was interesting or not, but it was fun for me to write down a bit of the rollercoaster that was IB – and if you’ve got any questions about it obviously just ask!

 

I’m Not Really Freaking Out Anymore (+ things are changing round here!)

https://www.instagram.com/p/BLDdQuvgZP2/?taken-by=mixolydianmusings

You might remember that a few weeks ago, when I was just starting college, I wrote a couple of not-too-cheery posts about how I was feeling (original here and update here – short version, I was terrified and missing everybody and questioning my choice slightly). Now, a month on, I’m feeling very different indeed so I thought I’d give you a final little update bit, in case you were vaguely interested or felt like me when you first started college.

So, first things first – I mentioned I was thinking about it in my update post but I’ve now swapped from Environmental Systems & Societies to Biology (at standard level). I’m enjoying it so far – this sounds kinda twisted but I’ve always struggled a bit with biology, especially during GCSE and I kinda like having the familiarity of that challenge?? I don’t really understand myself but I’m finding it OK so yeah, that’s the main thing. Other than that, I’ve kept my subjects the same and am enjoying almost all of them – we all have a bit of an issue with our maths studies teacher but other than that it’s all good, especially Spanish and Film Studies! (I’m actually actively looking forward tomorrow because I only have two lessons – we’re writing and filming telenovelas in Spanish and then learning how to use the cameras and shooting our film noir we’ve been working on for the past few lessons in Film Studies so that should be fun.) I’ve got the beginnings of a group of friends within IB and a group in the extracurricular academic academy thing I do so that’s good, and the Co-op bags of 5 cookies for £1 are getting very popular.

The missing friends and school, which was a big issue for me to start with has really settled down. I keep in contact with my old friends to varying degrees and have been in to see them at school a couple of times, and I’ve actually found there are some “friends” I don’t miss at all now I’m not forced to see them. It probably also helps a lot of my close friends were from out of school anyway. I do occasionally get pangs of, weirdly, missing GCSEs – I think because the work was easier and there was familiarity and people you’ve known since forever? Idk, it’s weird. College and IB was definitely the right choice for me and obviously I still struggle occasionally but what I’m trying to say is it gets so much easier. Everyone says it and you never believe it but in the last week or so I’ve started feeling so much happier coming home from college and it’s great. I’ve also started trumpet lessons, choir and a thing called Jazz Project at college so I’m just getting to know so many people! So yeah, overall yay 🙂

Now onto the ‘things changing’ bit…I’m going to start being more organised. Or try to at least. So I’m going to try and post regularly on Tuesdays, Fridays and Sundays, with a bonus ‘music of the month’ post at the end of the month. I don’t know if I’ll set a schedule of what I’m going to post, but I’ll see what evolves over the next few weeks and let you know!

Thanks for reading this mega rambley vaguely pointless post…

-AOT

PS this is my favourite song atm so you should definitely listen to it…

I’m Freaking Out: An Update

After all the many seriously lovely comments on one of my recent posts about my college-joining nerves, I thought I owed you all an update, now that I’ve done my two days of induction and two days of lessons too.

Looking on the bright side to start with, overall college is great. So far I’m enjoying the courses I’ve started already (except Environmental Systems & Societies…the teacher isn’t great and I’m thinking about swapping to Biology), the work generally seems doable, I’m *beginning* to make friends and get to know people (the IB cohort is only 50 people so you get to recognise people pretty quickly, even in a multi-building college of 4000 people) and my tutor’s really nice. Plus, where else can you get 80p tea and £1 sausage rolls? (probably quite a lot of places, shhh.)  Altogether I don’t think I regret my decision to go to college, which is always a good start!

But…probably naturally, it’s all slightly terrifying and I miss all my friends and my old school so, so much. I miss knowing everyone’s names and knowing the teachers and the teachers knowing me and knowing how stuff works and where to go and everything like that. I just miss the familiarity, the routineness and even the people who I was never really friends with but who were just part of the scenery until suddenly, in the space of a day, they’re not.

I am starting to get to know people, but I’m stuck in that awkward limbo where you’re trying to figure out who you’re drifting away from and who you want to stay in touch with, and you can’t call someone you’ve known for max four days a friend just yet. Add to that the stress of finalising my course choices, a residential to London with a bunch of people I’ve met exactly once next week, all the catch up work from that and the impending doom and stress of ‘when will the mountain of work we’re supposed to get hit’, coupled with all the extra elements of IB like CAS (shoutout to my new photography/writing blog for my creative section), nerves over starting college enrichment next week and general September back-to-school blues and you can probably imagine just how cheery I’m feeling at the moment.

I get that all this is normal – I’ve barely been there properly for two days, I can’t exactly expect to be settled in already – but, and I think it’s especially because I wasn’t forced to leave school, most of my friends left and I actually quite liked it, it’s still making me feel pretty shitty at the moment. I can cope OK during the day, but two days in a row now I’ve had mini meltdowns after college (at least I’m getting into a routine – get home, talk about how great day was (and it genuinely normally is), deny anythings wrong, do homework, freak out, bulk eat chocolate or other sugary substance, hide in cushion fort with duvet and blanket). I know it wouldn’t be the same if I was at school because two of my close friends also left, and the thought of doing A-Levels (my school doesn’t offer IB) makes my stomach feel vaguely sick and fluttery and anxious and panicky, but it’s still not easy.

So yeah, there’s a bit of an update. Not the cheeriest, but accurate. And I know things will get easier, probably even by the end of this week, but until then, things are feeling a little bit bleh. But I promise to update you again sometime, hopefully when I’m feeling a little more settled!

– featured image via unsplash

Thinking Ahead

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As I’ve mentioned in a couple of previous posts, I’m planning on leaving my school and going to the local college to do the International Baccalaureate in September (gulp). That means I’ll be leaving the school that I’ve been at for seven years, since year five, and not taking the conventional route of A Levels but instead studying something that pretty much everybody but my composition teacher and maybe my Spanish teacher has immediately said “oh, that’s meant to be really hard” about when I tell them. Double gulp. I’m planning on taking Spanish, English, Geography, Maths, Biology and Film Studies, all of which feels a bit daunting when I write it down like that. Eek. Maybe I should just stick with A Levels…

On second thoughts, nah.

I’m simultaneously terrified and excited. I’m terrified of the realisation that, provided I do go, I have thirty maths lessons left and then that’s it at school, I’ll be leaving loads of my friends, some of whom I’ve been friends with for a good six or seven years, leaving all the familiarity of a place and routine and teachers that I know and surroundings where I’m comfortable and (mostly) confident. I’ll be leaving everybody in my year, people that you just get used to being around and it’s kinda weird to think that suddenly I’ll go from seeing everyday to having barely any contact with. I’ll be going into the relative unknown that is the IB, as I have no close friends that have done it – the closest I’ve got is a German girl I play hockey with that’s doing it. I’m really scared that after thinking the IB is perfect for me, I’m going to hate it and have to reevaluate my plans and swap to A Levels, either at college or school. I don’t want to leave my two best friends, even though one is going to college too – she’s doing A Levels, and I’ll only get about two free periods each week, so it’s going to be hard to see her. I don’t want to leave the endless maths bants (using that word ironically only promise)(maybe) with my other best friends where we insult each other so incessantly that I think our teacher may think we actually hate each other. Actually, thinking about it, a similar thing’s starting to happen in English…

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But I’m excited too. When I got my offer, I was about a million times happier than I expected to be. I kinda just want to fast forward through GCSEs and results and everything and land on the first day of college and just see what it’s like. I honestly think the IB is the right choice for me, because whenever I think about leaving all my friends I still want to go to college. I’m looking forward to the freedom of a different schedule, a bigger campus, a new subject (film studies), more extracurricular music and making new friends (even though that feels terrifying), and meeting new people and kinda having the opportunity to get rid of the assumptions that people who’ve known me since primary school might have and just be the version of me that I want to be. The chance to kinda reinvent myself, I guess. I’m semi-looking forward to the possibility of seeing old, old, pre-year-five primary school friends or maybe ending up being college friends with people I already know outside of school through hockey or music or whatever.

I don’t think I’ve ever thought about September so far in advance, not even when I was choosing GCSEs. Maybe when I swapped primary schools?

I guess it’s the same for any kind of change – you’ve got to take the plunge and hope for the best. I definitely think leaving is right for me – I feel like if I stay I’ll just be constantly wondering what college would have been like, and at least two and probably more of my friends are leaving school anyway, so it’s not like everyone else will be carrying on the same without me. New people will join, too.

Ah well. What will be will be. And at least, even if I bail on the IB after the first week, I can tell myself I tried it and it just didn’t work out. Oh, and all the decision making has forced me to research the college so much that I can regurgitate a lot of information about it, the IB, the different option choices and the difference between taking subjects at standard of higher level very easily, and I’m sure that’s a skill that will be constantly coming in handy later in life.

Maybe…

This song is 100% me right now with GCSEs, big decisions, and life in general.

Are you having to make any big decisions about *further education* at the moment?