types of classes Options

[sprezzatura]

I just wonder what type of classes you all take...

I am in pre-IB but I am still deciding whether I'm going for the IB diploma or not. My school doesn't have much choices for IB classes, but AP allows me to choose classes that I can do well in instead of forcing me to take classes that show my weaknesses.

Should I go for the diploma?

My school doesn't offer much IB classes and most of them are mandatory* too.
IB Spanish/French/Chinese (SL*)
IB English*
IB 20th Century World History (HL*)
IB Biology (SL*)
IB Physics (SL/HL*)
IB Math (SL*/HL)
IB Theatre (HL*)/IB Art (HL*)/IB Music (SL/HL*) w/ advanced band or choir
150 CAS hours*
Theory of Knowledge (TOK*)
Extended Essay (EE*)

I really want to avoid IB history (the teacher is REALLY harsh), physics, art, TOK, and EE. But I am really fine with English, Spanish, biology, and math because those are my academic strengths.

[*Statues/Shadows*]

I chose "other," because my answer would be a combination, plus others.

I have 2 honors, 1 gifted, 1 gifted AP, 1 gifted IB/AP..the past two years, I just had half honors and gifted. Next year I'll be in almost all Ap, except one is still also IB and my oceanology class is CP (regular) because I wanted something easy to take with my friends.

Personally, my decision not to take full diploma IB was very easy, because I idiotically didn't take preIB because they made it out to be far more difficult than it actually would have been (which I don't appreciate, since that'd leave me one more elective period open for next year, but too late now). I don't know...the thing is, Mindy is one of those really brilliant people, and while I would never suggest you aren't smart, the workload really gets to a lot of the dploma kids at my school. Even beides the workload, there are a lot of needless other factors involved with it too.

I have a friend who is very much the brilliant kind as well and got the administrators to make exceptions for him so that he can take 7 classes (rather than the normal 6) to include TOK like the full IB kids, even though he didn't want to take full IB. Initially, his reasons for resisting were that he didn't want to bother with History of the Americas, because he thought it'd be more beneficial to take the one year course for which he could take the AP test. However, after a week in there, he decided it wasn't for him (we have combined gifted and regular AP history classes, and honestly, the regular halves are miserably slow) and switched into the IB class after all. With this schedule, he had all the same courses as the diploma kids, except music theory (which the musical kids were forced to take after school once a week). Then, he wound up doing the extended essay anyway because the alternative assignment was a completely unappealing Georgia project, and thus, his teachers thought he should still go for the diploma. Unfotunately, that would involve taking German over the summer to catch up to IB German 5, because he didn't start German until high school and is therefore in German 3 now. Between that and the CAS hours, he still decided not to go for the diploma, even though he had fulfilled all of the other requirements.

Thus, my point is that while you certainly shouldn't abandon IB altogether, you really need to examine your priorities to see whether you want to deal with all the nitpicky requirements. (Also, be warned: TOK is a great and beneficial class, but it's a GPA killer.)