For those of you that don’t know what International Baccalaureate (I.B.) is, it has a similar idea and structure to many programs across the country. You take a class that’s considered to be advanced, and at the end of the duration of that class, you test in what you’ve learned. If you happen to be lucky enough to get the required score, you earn college credit. To help you even further with understand I.B, here are some things to not say to someone when they mention their time in I.B.

1. We are nothing like A.P. students.

If you say that to any one of us, you’ll probably feel our wrath. “I.B being so much harder than A.P." We may even internally cite our sources as we argue our superiority to A.P.

2. Try your best to not complain to I.B. students about testing.

Testing for us was the ACT on steroids. To get just one history credit for college there were three separate days of testing. Three. Separate. Days.

3. Please don’t bash procrastination to our faces.

While we know in theory it’s probably not the best idea out there, that’s where some of our very best work came from. Seriously. I know many people who have written some outstanding essays the morning the said essay was due.

4. We can talk poorly about I.B. because some of us had endured it all.

This is especially throughout middle school and high school. However, please refrain from saying, “Wow, it kind of sounds like a waste of time for only enough credit to cover one class." While, yes, it might come off that way, we are very protective of the very thing we loathe with every essence of our beings.

5. Don’t bring up pointless lessons.

Unless you want to get a 40-minute rant on some of the pointless lessons we’ve had. I once had a lesson on proper note taking. Note taking: they literally taught us how they wanted us to take notes.

In conclusion, bring up whatever you want to I.B. alumni some may act like their special because of their time in I.B. and none of us are. Taking those classes doesn’t make us any better than those that didn’t