was doing ib a good decision?

welcome to introspection ft. harsehaj! ⭐️ i’m harsehaj, an 18 y/o always up to something in social good x tech.

this publication is a place for me to reflect on a new topic daily, and send it to your inbox. if you’re new here, sign up to tune in! you reading this is keeping me accountable, so thank you for that. as a treat, i drop cool resources/opportunities at the end. 💌 

btw, feel free to reply with topic ideas you want me to write about for future posts.

onto today’s topic: was doing ib a good decision? 😨

if you came here for the short answer:
yes, it was a good decision.

if you tuned in for an explanation, keep reading. (:

for those of you that don’t know what ib is, it stands for international baccalaureate, which is an advanced high school diploma. essentially, you do more rigorous courses + a bunch of standardized exams + a few 12 page reports (👎).

it’s a nerd program that i took and graduated from!

whether ib is a good decision is very dependent on situation and working style.

for me, it worked because of 3 main reasons:

1. i knew i wanted to apply to schools where the ib program is valued (ubc + american schools).

2. i am really good at managing my time if i do say so myself.

3. i know how i work best.

it’s pretty hard to get into a good american school as an international student without taking ap/ib courses, so those scores helped a lot in getting the morehead-cain scholarship + more.

yes, ib is a lot of extra work, but i quickly learned that i don’t need to do all of the work.

math teacher assigning 30 of the same question for homework? i’ll do 2-3 until i’m confident i know the concept, and then move on. i know how i learn and work best, so i did my course work according to my own style.

because i mastered the art of prioritization and doing work in a way that works for me, the course load was never overwhelming. i always had time to work on projects outside of ib or do extracurriculars. ⚽️

i frequently hear that ib makes you do a lot of useless work. this is true sometimes, but a lot of big assignments like IAs, the EE and CAS project can be easily turned into something valuable or a means to kill 2 birds with one stone.

• i turned my bio internal assessment into a study on EEG data and blue light, which helped me solidify the research i was already doing in the EEG field outside of school. 🧠

• i wrote my extended essay on breast cancer classification with artificial intelligence, and that still serves as an interesting project in my portfolio.

• i also put my non profit, codespire, down for my CAS project, which didn’t really require any extra work aside from what i was already doing.

there are so many opportunities to make ib work for you, instead of you working for it. obviously, it’s going to be tough studying for exams worth 80% and getting all your IAs in during that february-march crunch time, but it was worth it in the end (the 4 month summer vacation was also great). ⛱️

once i got the hang of it, it was easy to determine what exactly i needed to do in order to get the results i wanted. so, i’d say ib was a good decision for me — it boosted my portfolio & helped me get into my dream program. (:

it’s not the right decision for everyone though (and that’s 100% fine), so evaluate your work style and what you would use the diploma towards in the future!

if you have any questions about ib, i’m happy to give any specific advice and share ib resources — just shoot me an email.

cool finds of the day 🔍️