Here, I am offering a little guide to getting through the IB Program. Time Management This is a key to IB. Manage your time carefully and wisely. I won't be a hypocrite and say "do your homework the minute you get home from school" because I don't do that myself. I often find myself doing homework in increments throughout the afternoon, and mostly I do it in the evening and night. Now, I'm not saying you should follow my example. Priority should be homework. But if you are able to balance it that you can do one class's assignment, then take a break and an hour later do another class assignment, and so on and so forth, then you clearly have time to relax and do your homework, so good job. Having fun Making sure you have enough time to do homeworkdoes not mean you're not entitled to a life. You're a teenager too, dammit! Don't be afraid to sign up for clubs and sports - as long as you can balance your time, you will be able to do extracurriculars. Want to hang out with your friends? Go ahead. Again, as long as you can balance your time. And remember that you have no-school weekends! That means Friday night, Saturday night? You can go out to that club and stay out late! Get your work done earlier during the day on Saturday, or if not, there's that one more beautiful day called Sunday! If you know that you definitely won't be able to finish all your homework because you came home from school really late or things didn't work out, do homework for classes you have before your Lunch period first. Those should be priority. That way, if by the time you finish with those it's really late and you need to get some sleep, you can go to school in the morning safe and secure with the knowledge that you've done the work for the classes that immediately require it, and then you can do the homework for the afternoon classes on your Lunch period. You have 46 minutes during your Lunch of basically free time - use it wisely. The following is for the drinkers out there, because I know there are some drinkers already... I would love to write an essay on why you should stop drinking, but this is a guide to survive IB, so I won't go into that. I don't condone drinking, but I will say that if you have to drink, at least drink wisely, in moderation. Getting wasted out of your mind is not a necessary ingredient to having fun, contrary to popular belief, and you don't want to end up being thrown into the drunk tank at the jail or even worse, ending up drowning yourself. Put the alcohol away until Friday and Saturday, when you know that you don't have to be anywhere the next morning. It's never a good or fun thing to go to school with a hangover. You know your class will be loud and rowdy and your head will hurt like hell. Creativity-Action-Service (CAS) First off, let me tell you that is is not as hard as it seems to get that 150 hours. Yes, 150 is a huge number and it sounds like you couldn't do that much in your whole life. But trust me, by the beginning of Senior year, you'll find that you're already done with it, just have to do the paperwork of writing up the reflections. The range of things you could do for your CAS is so broad it seems too good to be true, and yet it is true. Remember how you had to sell those God-forsaken chocolates? Well, Ms. Barnes will sign for 20 hours just for selling those chocolate bars! The only thing she asks from you is that in your reflection sheets you talk about the Heifer International website. That's all. Just for that you get 20 hours! And remember there's a sale just waiting for you when you become seniors! Now, when you're seniors, it's voluntary, but I suggest that you volunteer, just to take a load off your CAS hour requirement. So total, just for selling chocolates you get 40 hours. That's nearly 1/3 of your entire requirement! Creativity (C) For Creativity, you can paint a mural, make some songs, create a website, go to a concert of a music group or music type that you've never been to before! It is so broad. Just as the title says, something creative. For IB students who choose Art as their major, you get Art class: when you have to paint something, or even while you're doing your regular drawings for your portfolio, I'm sure that can count. For IB students who choose Information Technology as their major, you get ITGS your junior year: during that class, you have to do an ITGS project, which might be a website or power-point, or a digital-video presentation. That counts! Action (A) For Action, this is where your extracurriculars come in. In your Junior and Senior year, you should make sure you're in several clubs. This serves a double-purpose: 1) the more clubs and sports you're in, the more club meetings and sport games you particiapte in, thus, more Action hours; 2) it looks good as hell on your college application to be involved in things. Service (S) For Service, I think it's self-explanatory - just your basic community service. Donate, help out at the community center, etc. Your Service hours can count for your generic Service Learning hours. If you can't find a YMCA or a Habitat for Humanity center, you can ask at your local library if you can help out there. At our school, Peer Jury can double as an Action and a Service hour activity. Selling chocolates for more than just IB? Well, those chocolates can count for some hours, too. You're helping raise money, aren't you? I'm not sure how much hours the sponsors of the clubs that you sell chocolates for would be willing to sign for, though, so consult them or ask Ms. Barnes about it. IB Art Not sure yet if there's any specific IB stuff to put in here. I'll ask a classmate of mine who's taking Art and I'll add some things here soon. Information Technology in a Global Society (ITGS) for IB Juniors The ITGS Internal Assessment consists of 2 parts 3 Portfolio Papers Basically, for each Paper, you must find a news article about an information technology (IT) related topic, issue, device, or invention Try to pick a topic you know something about. That way, you basically have your Introduction and half of your Background and Impact done because you know the basics of your topic. Also, prior knowledge of the issue will allow you to come up with solutions easier and faster. For each article, identify what's the IT topic or issue Remember to keep it simple. You don't need to explain how you would design an entire computer program and detail what type of code you would use in it to solve the problem. Just keep it simple so that it's clear that you know about the topic, and that you understand what you're saying. Make sure you cite those sources when needed - this is obvious, but it is absolutely necessary. Otherwise, it will appear as if you copied them straight off the Internet, from someone's paper, for instance. When writing your essay and reading your sources, and you have, for example, a book about the issue as a source, do not worry about having to read the whole book. Between ITGS and the rest of the IB classes, you probably will be stretched with time, anyway. So you won't have time to read the whole thing. Look in the index or table of contents for the particular thing you need. Then read that section and draw your information from those sections. Careful about the word limits. You do not want to go under - it will lower your score - but if you go over, they will stop reading your paper at the exact word limit and will not consider the rest of the essay. Do not slack off. You have 3 entire papers to write. Try to find a topic as soon as possible and once it's approved by your teacher, begin researching. Find other news articles about it, look up books, online seminars. Get your rough-draft done as soon as possible. That way you can work on other things and feel secure in knowing that you at least have the base of your essay done. Look over and edit your rough-draft wherever it needs to be changed or clarified, and then turn in the edited version to your teacher. He/she is allowed to only read each of your papers only once before sending in a final version. So make this first one good, or else you will have to make a lot of changes for the final version and the teacher will only take it as a final copy, not to give you notes on what else you must do. Do not wait until the last week to hand in your draft to your teacher. He/she will not have time to read it closely enough to give younotes on all the things you still need to write. To be on the safe side, try to turn in your final draft at least a week in advance, as well. You won't get it back, of course, but at least your teacher won't lose it anywhere in the flood of paperwork that he/she will be getting and doing. Your teacher should give you, in addition to the Portfolio Paper criterion, a list of IB definitions of words like "analyze", "explain", etc. Guard that thing with your life. You'll need it to know what else you need to write to satisfy the Criterion demands and you'll need to cram the definitions into your head to know what you need to write about on the exam. ITGS Project In addition to the 3 Portfolio Papers, you must do 1 Project The Project is essentially a solution to any kind of issue affecting society - it could be as simple as making an IB website for your class to look at, or making a website with notes for a class Your solution must be IT-related. That includes digital-video-presentation or making a website, among other things. You must keep track of your progress in a notebook journal Update your journal regularly. It will put you at a major disadvantage if your notebook is mainly empty and only has a handful of entries. Don't feel that your entries must be limited to "I finished this portion of my website presentation". Describe your progress overall - what did you add to it today? What problems did you encounter? What are you doing to try and counteract those problems? Got any screenshots? Print and paste. Fill that journal! Don't slack off on your Project, either. It doesn't have to be complicated. But it's definitely not as simple to do as writing a paper. You must conduct 2 Beta-tests Beta-tests are kind of like previews - they can be surveys asking participants to look at your product and evaluate it, and give suggestions what you're missing, what you should add, how to make it better, etc. They're not only a necessity, but they're actually a helpful necessity After you conduct your Beta-tests and adjust your project accordingly, you will have to conduct an End-user test This is the same as a Beta-test, except the person doing it must be of the group that is the target of your project (ie, who is this solution for). Ask them to see if it's all good and if it's effective. If not, make what changes they ask you to make and that will be your final product. Of course, it wouldn't be an Internal Assessment if you didn't have to evaluate yourself. You will have to give a basic summary of what your project is, what problem is it trying to address, who is the target audience, and discuss your beta-tests and end-user test. Include appendices - show screen-shots, statistics/diagrams/charts, and use your beta-tests and end-user test as parts of the appendices. Refer to these appendices in your essay as well, so that the IB people know where to go to see what work you did. Remember to label the appendices. ITGS Exam Study the definitions of the above-mentioned vocabulary list. That's really all you can do to prepare. Extended Essay Do not slack off Turn in your first draft to the EE coordinator as soon as possible. That way, he/she has more time to look over it carefully and make much more careful notes on it, and you have even more time to apply the changes that needed to be made. Turn your final essay as soon as possible, as well, to avoid the risk of the coordinator losing it amidst the flood of papers he/she will be getting in the week leading up to the final deadline. Your responsibilities Find a topic you would like to research. Try to make sure it's something you have some prior knowledge about. This way you know background and basic information and will just need those sources to fill in some gaps and give you more perspective on the entire topic. Once you have your topic, begin researching it right away. Even if you do not yet have the Criterion sheet, you should be doing research and organizing it into notes and outlines. Find a mentor that can help you with your topic. The mentor should be well-informed of the topic and preferably a teacher in the school. This means that possible mentors will be in short supply. Get to them fast, or else later they will be busy. Once you have all the information you need regarding assessment criteria, formatting, as well as all your research and notes, write your essay The Extended Essay coordinator's responsibilities (NOTE: THIS IS WHAT I THINK THE PERSON IN CHARGE OF IT SHOULD DO - HERE IS WHERE MY OWN PERSONAL BIAS FIGURES IN. IT'S UP TO YOU AS A CLASS TO DETERMINE IF YOU'RE GETTING THE HELP YOU NEED OR NOT AND WHAT ACTION TO TAKE IF YOU'RE NOT) Providing you with the General Assessment Criteria as soon as possible - these Criteria are what the IB will grade all essays with, regardless of Subject Area Finding out what Subject Area your individual Extended Essays are categorized as and giving you the Criteria for your Subject Area - these are Criteria that differ for each Subject Area Collecting your Extended Essays (duh!) If you need help and your mentor was unable to help you for whatever reason, you should feel free to be able to ask the EE coordinator and he/she should try to help you then Tips for you to help you get your EE done as soon as possible The format for the Extended Essay would usually be a standard, generic introduction-body-conclusion essay format. However, this may differ based on your topic and/or Subject Area. If you're unsure, consult the EE coordinator or your mentor Remember your Science Fair project reports? How you had to have a Table of Contents and Abstract? Guess what? You have to have those for your EE as well The Abstract is basicaly the same as when you had to write Science project reports - no more than 300 words summarizing your entire essay. The Table of Contents is equally simple - example: Page 1 - Front Page; Page 2 - Table of Contents; Page 3 - Abstract; Page 4 - Essay. Easy like that. In the ITGS section, I mentioned that it's less time-consuming (and in fact might be necessary if your deadline is days away) to, rather than read every single page of your books that you have as sources, look at table of contents and index, find the term, place, person, or event you're looking for, and read that section only. You might want to do the same here. However, if you are not pressed for time, feel free to read those books whole. It might give you more perspective and might allow you to have a more balanced essay, earning you points from IB for being less-biased. Your sources - you want to know that your sources are valid Preferably, use books, scholars' or professors' theses, etc. Be very careful if you plan on using Internet websites as your sources - just about anyone can post anything online. Also, wikipedia - the online free encyclopedia has a lot of information. However, anyone can edit those articles/entries. I swear, I've seen an entire article about the history of Germany get locked down by the wikipedia moderators because someone constantly re-wrote the fair and balanced entry with their own extremely-biased version. To this day that article is unfinished because the mods don't want their hard work in restoring it to be erased yet again by that same person, or someone else who would do stuff like that. So wikipedia is good if you want to read up on the event or topic a bit to gain some background information, but I would be careful, even hesitant, about listing it as a source for the essay. There is no minimum word limit. The maximum is 4,000. Try to get in there somewhere between 3,000 and 4,000. 4,000 - even the 3,000 suggested minimum - words may seem like a lot. It is a huge number. However... Don't get discouraged. Think about all those analytical essays you've been writing for English. Chances are they were between 1,000 and 1,500 words each. That's more than 1/4 of the EE right there! If you choose a topic that you know a lot about, and if you really get into writing this essay once you begin, you will find yourself going over the limit and having to cut some things. Just like with the CAS hours, the huge number masks the doability of it. Collective/group/class action If you feel that a teacher is not giving you enough help with, say, an Internal Assessment, or even if you want to re-schedule that end-of-the-year English meeting so that you don't have to stay in school the whole day while everyone else is home because no attendance or grades are being taken, take class action. Basically kind of like an intervention. Before you take this step, try talking with that particular teacher. Maybe if you tell him/her, you will get the help after all. If telling him/her about the issue does not produce results, it might be time to take things a bit further, in the form of either a class petition or even going to the IB counselor all together and telling her about the issue. However, don't be too drastic with this. Discuss it with your entire class. Those that are for class action, it's your responsibility to say why you think you should take action, maybe convince the undecided/opposed with your arguments. Those that are against taking action, it's your responsibility to say why you think this next step should not be done with your own arguments, as well as provide alternative solutions, whatever they may be. Whichever side you're on, you have a responsibility to argue why or why not. Not only does this show mutual respect and mutual understanding and unity, it also is a clear sign of maturity. Whatever conclusion your class comes to, it should be clear that both sides were heard. The next step after debate is to follow through with the conclusion. If you take class action and tell the IB coordinator (whether by collective-assembly or collective-petition), whatever your action is, it is much stronger if more people actively support it (signatures, being there when you talk to the coordinator). The IB coordinator will then approach the teacher about it directly. However, this requires your responsibility as well. If you speak, make sure you act to back it up. That means do the work. If you complain about lack of help with an Internal Assessment, for instance, and then only a handful of people turn it in, then the whole proces will backfire on you and your whole class will suffer. Especially if you supported and participated in the class action, you should be one of the people who actually is doing the work. Asking for help You should never feel ashamed of asking for help. One of the functions a teacher should perform in addition to giving you handouts on a subject is providing help if necessary. You're entitled to that as a student and you should use that right whenever you need to. Especially if you need help regarding an Internal Assessment or the Extended Essay, ask for it, even demand it if need be. Needing help and asking for it in no way indicates that you need your hand held at every step. On the contrary, it shows that you are mature and responsible enough to recognize a weakness and ask questions to try and offset that weakness and do things the right way. Remember: If you do it all on your own, then more power to you, but grade-wise and in terms of IB scores and college applications, doing it all on your own doesn't matter if you do it wrong.