Whether or not someone should pursue the IB Diploma has been debated at our school for years, and many openly share their strong feelings for or against it.
Senior Andres Rodriguez is one of the many students who decided to follow the IB path his sophomore year and take as many IB courses as he could in his upperclassmen years.
“I first started for two main reasons,” Rodriguez said. “First, because I wanted to find a way to prepare for my future, and second, because a lot of my friends were doing it, too.”
His upperclassmen friends told him about the diploma, encouraging him to also go after it. However, he quickly discovered the rigorous nature of the courses at the beginning of his junior year, when he started to notice the true effects of the diploma: candidates were cramming in last-minute studying, preparing for their IAs, and looking like they had not slept in weeks.
“My experience with the diploma has felt like a strange sort of torture, like in a cruel and unusual sort of way, with constant essays and assessments while the light at the end of the tunnel has only felt like a dream,” Rodriguez said. “Even still, I can’t say I haven’t learnt from it.”
One of the main aspects of the IB diploma program is the Extended Essay, an essay that IB students begin their junior year and finish in their senior year.
Completing this essay requires much preparation as well as dedication, and, according to Rodriguez, procrastination can be a big challenge that students face along the way. For his essay, Rodriguez chose to write about industrialization’s effect on new U.S. immigrants.
“To be honest, I procrastinated everything for the essay,” Rodriguez said. “However, though it was mostly rushed for me, I still enjoyed exploring my topic.”
After committing for years to the diploma’s difficult and thorough work, Rodriguez both improved his writing and prioritization skills, though he found that his time management never exactly improved.
“Though the diploma was supposed to teach time management skills from the amount of work they were giving, I didn’t really build good habits,” Rodriguez said. “Throughout my entire high school experience, I had always waited until the last minute to do work, and it got me this far, so apparently it works. Still though, this year has definitely been a learning experience for my future.”
Rodriguez would advise others to not let their work pile up, especially when the IB diploma is paired with extracurricular activities.
Though it was somewhat manageable for him to procrastinate his school work with extracurriculars, he would suggest not putting off work to reduce the amount of stress as much as possible.
“If your work does stack up, which is pretty likely, make sure to find a nice chair and desk where you can work on assignments until early morning,” Rodriguez said.
As for the Extended Essay, Rodriguez recommends that students “first find a topic that they truly enjoy, and then definitely don’t procrastinate on the writing part.” It may seem like there is a lot of time provided to complete the assignment, but students still should not procrastinate in order to avoid having too much work to do right before the deadline.
To the underclassmen debating whether or not they should pursue the diploma, he suggests that they try it out for their junior year and observe how it plays out for themselves.
“If you struggle a ton during that year or decide you don’t want to do it, you can always switch classes and drop out of it, and it’d all be okay,” Rodriguez said.
In the end, Rodriguez managed to maintain good academic integrity and keep his grades up, even with his tendency to procrastinate. Though he would agree that the IB diploma is a next-level challenge for students, he greatly values all of the skills and lessons he gained from the intense workload.
“I feel like the most important thing that the diploma has taught me about is myself,” Rodriguez said. “I’ve just learned so much from how I deal with stressful situations, last minute work, and more, so I am pretty grateful that I decided to go after it.”
The IB diploma may not be suitable for every student, but its demand for effort and time management certainly offers many benefits in the end for those who choose to take on the challenge.