When I was in the 10th grade, my english teacher recommended that I take International Baccalaureate (IB) classes in my junior and senior year. All of my friends were dead set on taking AP classes and so was I -- until that moment. The thoughts running through my head ranged from "You'll be in a class with people you don't know!" to "Lydia, maybe this IB thing will let you grow creatively."

So I made the choice. I switched my mind from AP English and AP World History to IB English and IB World History.

When I stepped into my first IB class, it just so happened that I had an amazing teacher named Mrs. Dowling. She was the kind of teacher that instantly made you feel at home. Between talks about Supernatural, Downton Abbey, and the occasional episode of Emma, we read books that opened the mind and extended the capacity of the heart.

We read Joseph Conrad (Many lament the difficulty of "Heart of Darkness." I, however, do not.), Isabel Allende (whose explicit and sometimes interesting stories both shocked and tickled me pick), Gabriel Garcia Marquez (What more is there to say about "Chronicle of A Death Foretold?" I am currently mourning its absence from my bookcase.) And Kafka and Camus ("The Metamorphosis" was just astounding and Camus basically introduced me to existentialism. Thank you, Camus. My IB English one class helped me make more than just good friends, it taught me more about myself than I could've ever imagined.

IB World History was taught by Mrs. Knight, who was kind, funny and absolutely the best history teacher I had ever had. I learned more about the world from different points of view (not just an American point of view), and the phrase that I took away from this class sat above the whiteboard: "I think, therefore IB." We read Howard Zinn (where I fell in love with his huge book, "A People's History of the United States"), listened to "We Didn't Start The Fire," and had a day where we were hippies sitting on bean bags in a circle. In this class I learned that looking back at history and wanting "simpler times" was relative and pointless, feminism was not wrong (and was not dead either), and that we were making history right then and there. We didn't have to be old to make history and we weren't too young to change it either.

My final IB class came my senior year. IB English two. Let me just say that Mrs. Vernon was a teacher that not only made you think, but she made you want to think. She was -- and still is -- a great motivator during my senior year. We explored the work of Sylvia Plath that year as our summer reading (Just imagine me sitting by the pool reading "The Bell Jar.") and continued to read about her for the rest of the year. If you didn't know, Plath became not only part of my top ten favorite female writers, but a source of inspiration for my own poetry. We also read "The Road" by Cormac McCarthy, which changed my life.

s/n: If you haven't read it, you should. It makes you think about the world in a way that provokes not only stimulating conversations but also spurs you to read it again and again. The unnamed boy and unnamed man are two characters I will not soon forget.

We read Faulkner, whom I find to be very interesting and Michael Ondaatje, who wrote "Running in the Family." (I kept that book purely for the "What We Think of Married Life" photo and it's riveting poems. What a memoir!) We stood up on tables and yelled "Oh captain, my captain!" We wrote like Faulkner! We watched and read Hamlet, a play that questioned not only the price of living, but the price of death. We read many other novels and poems and plays (like Hamlet) in that class and I wrote my final essay on "The Road." That class taught me more about how to make each day better than the last and how to get the most out of life.

So, here's to you, IB. Thank you for the lessons, easy and hard-learned, and the amazing life skills you've taught me. Thank you to the IB teachers who inspired me and taught me how to see the world in a different way. You guys gave me more than just a great education, you gave me a great high school career.

And if you're taking IB, don't stress too much about those exams. Just try to sum up what you've learned in a great essay. Your teachers will help you, I promise.

Good luck to those going into IB! And for those who are not sure . . . choose IB. It's so worth it.