Written by:Alexandra Saw, Hayley Chu and Oufan Li,Y13 students
The International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme is a two-year programme where Year 12 to 13 students take assessments in six subjects, along with core requirements that include the Creativity, Activity and Service (CAS) component, various project-based assessments (like the Extended Essay) and a Theory of Knowledge (TOK) course. Being a rigorous curriculum, students have all learned a lot from doing the programme. Here are three current Year 13 students sharing what they have learned from the IBDP.
“The IB’s CAS Programme truly enabled me to explore my interests outside of school such as community service work. It taught me the importance of living a balanced lifestyle while encouraging me to enact positive change in our world. It showed me that simply thinking about making change is not enough; our intentions must be supplemented with action. Since, I have engaged in numerous community service projects that have helped me engage with issues important to me. Thus, my experiences with the CAS Programme have allowed me to see our world through fresh, innovative lenses and left me with invaluable memories I will always hold dear.” — Alexandra Saw (13B)
“As you would expect with any education curriculum, us IB students spend the bulk of our time studying content in class. As exhilarating as that sounds, my biggest take-away from the IB was learning how to apply this content to my own interests, with the programme’s various project-based assessments. Whether conducting a literary investigation of hip-hop lyricism, writing a business report about the podcast industry, or compiling a statistical analysis of basketball performance, the IB has provided me with vast opportunities to make use of the knowledge I gained in class while diving into topics I’m genuinely curious about. After all, what good is gaining knowledge if you don’t learn how to use it?”— Oufan Li (13B)
“One particularly memorable moment from TOK was after a class at the beginning of Year 12, Mr. Tomochko asked me how I was finding the course. I said that it was quite confusing with all the new terms we were recently introduced to, such as Areas of Knowledge, Ways of Knowing, justified true belief (the TOK definition of “knowledge”), etc. He said it was completely normal to be confused, and that “if your brain isn’t hurting, you’re probably not doing it right.” After almost two years of chronic cerebral pain, I’m grateful that TOK has allowed me to develop my critical thinking skills and made me a more questioning learner, from examining the nature of knowledge to the reliability of statistics about whether doing a superman pose actually makes you more confident.”— Hayley Chu (13B)
As we approach the end of the IB Diploma Programme, we can’t help but reflect on all that we have learned throughout these two years. In addition to the rich content pertaining to our six academic subjects, the IBDP has left us with important skills and experiences that transcend academic fields, the impact of which will likely last long after we have received our diplomas.