Some people consider high school to be some of the best years of your life, but it can also be some of the most stressful as well. In high school, my experience fell more on the stressful end of the spectrum. I was in the International Baccalaureate in high school. My days often started around 5 a.m. with school, field hockey practice, marching band and then homework until midnight or later. For anyone who knows what IB is it needs no explaining, but for those who do not know, IB is a rigorous international academic program designed to create a more rounded and openminded student. For those of us who survived IB, here are a few experiences we know all too well.
1. Any time you meet another former IB student you freak out a little.
Any former IB Student knows the struggle of IB all too well. However, in college many people don't know what IB is, but once in a while you meet someone that was in IB. You instantly have a bonding moment with them because they understand how stressful high school was.
2. You still cringe at Acronyms.
IB is obsessed with acronyms. IA, IOP, IOC, TOK, EE, CAS, SL, HL, and IB, juust to name a few, and only IB students understand how much fear those acronyms could bring.
3. You have a whole speech explaining what IB is.
A lot of people in your adult life will not know what IB is and you often have to explain it to them. Most non-IB think that IB is like AP, but it definitely is not.
4. College essays do not seem that bad anymore.
In IB you definitely got your fair share of practice writing, from writing essays the day before they were due, writing your 4,000-word Extended Essay and from writing your IB papers (tests) until your hands were in pain. Now a thousand-word term paper doesn't seem too bad.
5. You still procrastinate.
Procrastination has seeped into your soul permanently. It has become a part of you. No matter how much you want to stop, you still find a way to procrastinate.
6. You try to find a way to make what you are doing into a CAS hour.
In IB you got creative finding ways to make things CAS hours. Now every extracurricular you do in college, you will sometimes catch yourself trying to figure out to count it as CAS hour.
7. The stress and sleep deprivation of high school has carried over to your adult life.
After IB you never really learned how to let your guard down again. You still dream about getting eight hours of sleep and want to remember what life was before you knew what stress was.
8. You know how to analyze any piece of literature or film, and you can use at least three different lenses or critiques to do so.
Feminist, Marxist, Psychoanalytical, Historical, or Post-Colonial lens. You name it, we can analyze it.
9. You still find any excuse to bring up your Extended Essay.
You spent at least a year if not more on your Extended Essay. You became an expert on your topic. If something remotely close to your EE topic pops in conversation, you catch yourself wanting to talk about your EE.
10. You realize actually how confusing Theory of Knowledge was.
No two experiences in TOK were the same, but something everyone agrees on is that it was confusing and could often cause existential crises.
11. You sometimes wonder how you actually survived.
You look back on your two years of all-nighters, the endless extracurriculars, all of your community service, the countless essays, and the nerve-wracking presentations and wonder how you did it without breaking down more than you did.
12. You hate to admit it, but you do have some great memories (and stories) from IB.
IB gave us two years if not more of great memories. From the weird ways our teachers tried to teach us about fallacies (one of mine personally had us throw bologna at a wall) to being caught in the crossfire of your teacher throwing an egg during a lesson, each one of us has a weird, unique and amazing anecdote from our time in IB.
