8 Signs You Were an IB Student

Once upon time, before some students entered the world of university, they had to suffer the horrors of IB. What is IB, you’re asking? Well, it stands for International Baccalaureate; a special curriculum designed for students who wish to study abroad. This program is very popular among many international schools, and I myself participated in an IB Diploma Program. That being said, I can confidently declare that an IBDP is one of the most strenuous and difficult curriculums out there. Now that I’m feeling a bit nostalgic, here are 8 signs that you were (or are) definitely an IB student!

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1. You know you’re smart.

Since the subjects in IB are so hard, and studied in such great depth, you basically can’t be an IB student unless you’re smart. I cannot express the amount of information us IB students were expected to know for essays and exams before starting college. So, I guess some of these things just stuck; making classes in college a breeze.

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2. Writing college essays is easy as pie.

IB is known for it’s insane amount of essays. No, I’m not talking about 5-6 page papers due at the end of the semester, I’m talking about minimum 20 page essay requirements, or so called “Internal Assignment,” for each subject. On top of that we had Extended Essay, which was technically a research paper or thesis, that ranged from 40-70 pages. So as you can imagine, when it came to a typical college essay, I was astounded! Expectations were not much and they graded pretty leniently. Also, not many pages were required; I often found that I could just type whatever came to my mind first, and I would still do pretty well.

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3. You appreciate the benefit of transfer credits.

This is one huge advantage of taking IB that many may be able to connect with. Even though I did not take IBDP for the sake of getting credits, it did benefit me in university. If IB students do well, they get a decent amount of credits transferred and applied to college and are not required to take some courses. The kicker? This puts us ahead of the game, compared to an average student!

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4. You’re analytical skills are above par.

In IBDP, there is a compulsory course called “Theory of Knowledge.” Judging from the name itself, it probably sounds pretty boring. It was. It revolved around philosophy and exploring the meaning and significance of every subject. However, in the long run it actually provides IB students with knowledge they probably aren’t even aware of. You gain analytical skills and assume the capability to understand things at a different level – something you can apply to many courses when you go to college.

5. Time management comes natural to you.

I personally feel that IB prepared us well when it comes to time management. We were loaded with so much work, that we had no choice but to juggle and take any measure to submit assignments at the right deadline. So now, the pressure of college workloads seem much more manageable.

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6. Your research skills are impeccable.

Thanks to our infamous International Assignment, IB students are very well acquainted with research. The continuous research projects started to ingrain research strategies into my brain – I knew which key words to use, where to look, and how. When I went to begin researching in college, I either already knew the information from before, or I knew exactly how to gather the data within a few minutes.

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7. You avoid plagiarism like the plague.

We all know that plagiarism is a crime, but as IB students, we were taught means and ways to avoid plagiarism at all costs. This prevention was so rigid and endlessly reminded, the practice will stay with us forever.

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8. You LOVE to participate.

A telltale sign of an IB student is someone who craves to be active and participate in as many clubs and groups as possible. This is probably in large part thanks to the CAS system in IBDP. CAS stands for Creative, Action and Service. In order to fulfill the three categories, we had to be part of community service, be in adventurous and sporty activities, and strive for our creative and thinking side. This pushed us to have a better resume as well! Many IB students have become pretty successful just because of their dedication towards CAS.

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As any IB student will tell you, for all those time we cried and struggled through late nights re-writing and editing those essays, banging our heads to understand the content, it certainly paid off! Congratulations to all the IBDP students who survived those intense two years and now are chilling at university this moment. But we all know…this is just the beginning!