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
caffeineblood 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.
“Start” and “deadline” become synonymous
So TRUE. The last TOK essay we had to do I started two days before the deadline (yes I know that’s early). Most of my friends leave World Lits till the night before.
Oooo i know what magic realism is! A whole year of Latin American novels taught me that!
Hmm… IB creates a bond of pain and suffering amongst its brainwashed masses of so-called students, that’s my theory.
Are you going into year one or year two? (You sound experienced enough to go into year two haha)
I just screwed up on my first commentary, so I whole heartedly agree…
I love magical realism btw.
Wow…you covered just about everything. (Though you didn’t mention making the librarians hate you because you and your friends always have shouted debates about Lenin, Stalin, and Mao in the library every day. Perhaps that’s just me.)
Makes me terrified of my next two years of life…and I hate coffe. LOL
Yes, the workload is a utter NIGHTMARE, yet at the same time, we are forced to bond and go back to our natural human roots. There is no caste system in IB as the rest of the school, its a system of people who work together and eventually become one family.
I doubt Arashi screwed up the commentary harder than I did.
I choked on my commentary. It was just 10 minutes of watching someone twitch and jerk will standing absolutely silent.
The satire was a little overdone; particularly done here in the message box.
‘Gulp’-I’ve actually willingly entered to do the IB . Well if your article is anything to go by, I’ve just signed my own social life off. Is it really that bad? Surely it can’t be as terrifying as you make it out to be? Oh well, better start buying coffee sachets. Maybe some anti-depressants.
P.S- Great article, mildly entertaining, if not terrifying. Anyway, better be off I have a GCSE Maths paper in 19 hours exactly.
In all honesty, I really cannot say that myself or many of my friends found that IB particularly difficult.
Not in a pretentious or gloating way, it just really wasnt THAT hard.
I wrote my EE in one night, that was the only time I had to resort to the Pro Plus. (That was entirely my fault, though, as I left it to the last minute despite having 2 months to write it)
The art, you see, is to simply not do the work that isnt necessary.
I sat my last exam this morning, and am now liberated. But I simply cannot say, looking back, that it was so tough.
Try the Abitur, now thats a fucking nightmare!
Henry
Oh lorrd , please tell me that IB is worth it because then i willing aagreed myself for 3 years of hell .
oh shit is it really that hard!!!!!!!!
i have to make a decision
IB is a simple concept, IBO is actually an experimental agency, and they have one simple question they want to settle, “To what extent (because IB LOVES “To what extent) can a student handle the pressure and stress of a large amount of homework that is actually not realistic, until they are unable to continue further and end their life.”
So far, they have been unable to provide fruitful results, as most participants in the study (aka, us IB students) are more afraid of their parents (i.e. asian parents) than death, and we also lack the time to plan out a suicide, being under the tremendous amount of homework, thus the IB program continues, until one day they are able to find a conclusion to the question.
To all those saying “it’s not that hard” you must enjoy not sleeping, not doing any extracurricular activities besides CAS hours, and having so much work you have to take mental health days. Your school must have been doing it wrong.
However, I do enjoy the added challenge it has given me, however ironic you may find that to be. If you are bored in normal classes and/or wish to dedicate yourself to a much higher level, I recommend it. Just develop a good sense of humor and say goodbye to everything you love for two years. I heard it makes college a breeze.
That was an entertaining and well written article indeed. The points you made were funny yet interesting. However, I must say that I am still up for this IB ‘challenge’.
Guyz, having finished IB I can guarantee you a breeze of a first year in university!
Yes, IB was definitely intense and true to the last word the original author posted along w/ some of the comments from people. I didn’t start my TOK essay till 3 hours before it was due and still got my A =)
IB is the best thing ever despite all the hardships. The thing is, it does seem quiet difficult if you play by the book =P
Once you are done, you always reflect back as IB being the highlight of your academic career =D
This website knows what i am goiing through
ib fucks people like my school canadian international school u know there is this lady called penny our vice principle she is a tailugly bitch who gets scared of lizards and i also think she has sticky noodle hairs with and also she f's all the staff in da school so do not go to cis
by:
graduated ib student