What is IB Really?

IB stands for Intellectual Beating International Baccalaureate. It is the creation of an organization based in Geneva, Switzerland called the International Baccalaureate Organization. This organization is made up of people who’s goal is to find cruel and unusual ways to make IB student’s lives more miserable than they already are. Needless to say, they are very efficient at it. Thousands of students can attest to their success by the number of hours of sleep lost because of IB and a blood-caffeine level far above that of any normal mortal can sustain without serious repercussions. Despite these seemingly negative features, thousands of students decide to take on the mental and physical challenge that is IB every year.

The bulk of IB is the courses. IB students are presented with challenging coursework that is specifically designed to push IB students to the limit—an endurance test if you will. An IB student who is used to finding school easy often experiences something they have never felt before: challenged. Some may quit after this emotionally traumatizing experience, but the determined keep going.

One of the major components of IB is CAS, which stands for Caffeine Absorption System Creativity, Action, Service. The goal of CAS is to amplify “counterbalance” the rigors of academic study through 150 hours of activities involving creativity, action, and service. The three categories involving CAS are vaguely defined in order to encompass a wide variety of activities. However, efforts to justify “imagining away to collect 150 hours with minimal effort” as creativity have failed to this date.

IB students often procure a common set of characteristics, habits, beliefs, and world views. The follow is a list of symptoms that indicate you are an IB student:

  • Caffeine is your friend. IB students must maintain a constant flow of caffeine in their caffeine blood system.
  • Insomnia blows. IB students often find it hard to go to sleep before 11:00PM when they have the time because countless nights of homework until 1:00AM has screwed up their biological clock.
  • “Start” and “deadline” become synonymous. Procrastination is particularly rampant among IB students. Research for a vaccine for this deadly cancer is underway. However it is still awaiting approval by the FDA.
  • You know what existentialism and magic realism means.
  • You know what the constant of universal gravitation is.

Despite these shortcomings, there must be something good about IB. It must serve some purpose besides preparing you for college and making you “smarter”. My theory is that it connects people. Going through IB is no small feat and taking on the challenge I think creates a commonality between people. You meet new people through IB that become some of your best friends. These are the friends who you call up at midnight asking for help on that one particularly hard math problem. These are the friends who you know are going through the same thing and make the suffering bearable. These are the friends ones who stand beside you, watch your back, and pick you up off the ground when you are about to give up. I don’t know if my theory is right. Maybe I’ll blog about it after I graduate and find the answer.

Posted on April 11, 2007 in School