Are we over-hyping IB?

Disclaimer: The author is in DP1, so the comments “your life will be hell next year” are accepted. 

Before someone tries to locate my house and tell me I’ve gone crazy, which is, perhaps, a side effect of IB, this is an opinion piece and should be treated as that, the IB journey is unique but perhaps a little similar for us all. I present a thesis: the IB is not as hard as we claim it to be. 

Now, in comparison to other systems, the IB curriculum is a challenge. Yes, we have core, and yes, we have six subjects with assignments and studying that is never truly over. Yes, we have CAS, but that is actually our advantage. It is that idea that there is always something more to do, another task, another presentation to go over, never-ending past papers and question banks to review that is our advantage. We know there is always more to do, and in that, there is comfort. When the to-do list is never-ending, the notion that we cannot do everything is accepted, and as such, it is alright when we don’t review as much as we wanted to or when we try to finish a task a few days before the deadline and push it until the final moment. When there is always more to do, we understand we cannot do everything. If you are a fellow DP1, think back to the TOK (theory of knowledge- an IB philosophy like course mandatory for all students) lesson from a week ago (DP2s – attempt to remember) about infinity. Considering the infinite hotel example, think of the rooms and guests and things that need to be done/reviewed, and we – the hotel manager, set to get everyone in all the rooms for infinity. We would exhaust ourselves, and so we can’t do everything, and we understand that. In that, there is a relief of pressure that we can do everything in our ability, yet there is no finish line to work towards.   

And as we are all working with no clear target in sight and only small ones, we set ourselves (or maybe we’ve given up), we are all, to a certain degree, miserable. Misery loves company, and there is no one more miserable than a DP1 student; we can’t even see our end of the tunnel; at least the DP2s have that as motivation. But, as we are all miserable, there is always someone to find who is as confused/frustrated, meaning no one ever really feels lonely (see IB pain bridges online school).  

Now, this may be a wild take, but because we all share the pain, it doesn’t feel nearly as stressful because it's normal. If being stressed isn’t out of the ordinary and is acceptable, and we have nothing pressuring us and the understand that we can never complete everything. Thus, failure is acceptable. I’m sure I’m not the only person who needs to hear this after mock results came out, but that 5/4/3 you got is normal. It's not because you have time to improve it, but because there's nothing you can really do about it now. Go read the feedback; know you have work to do, but understand that it's just another task that needs to get to a hotel room, and you aren’t the only one struggling with the task of accepting you’re not doing as well as you hoped.   

This is all to say: we are miserable, but we are miserable together, and doing more won’t get us anywhere. Sometimes, a week goes bad, and you get to Monday with five tasks due that night, yet it’s still fine that you did nothing over the weekend. IB is a long run, and with a little look around us, we see everyone is miserable and it‘s not just you who is dying – and to me, there's comfort in that.   

I may not have convinced you that the difficulty of the IB is over-hyped; it is still no doubt an exhausting program, but perhaps I have managed to explain why the mental pressure side of it is just a little over-inflated. Or more specifically, the scale of it is, because with a rather dark look on it, there’s nothing to compare it to make it seem bad.