International Baccalaureate or IB was a highly anticipated change to Valley curriculum for the 24-25 school year.
Earning your IB Diploma come senior year comes with taking an advanced route of specialized courses offered to our current juniors. The IB system differs systematically from AP or Dual Enrollment as these courses aim to provide a deeper and more global understanding of core and even some elective subjects. Additionally, a student may enroll in individual IB courses or choose to be on the full track to earn the IB diploma at the end of senior year.
IB is now in full swing with its first year at Valley for our current juniors on this specialized track. As we are knee-deep into school at this time of year, IB students have gotten a taste into what the rest of their high school career will look like.
Here’s what they think:
“I think IB genuinely fixed my 5 years of burnout,” junior Clarin Guacher, who is on the route to earn the IB Diploma, said.
“For such a long time I’ve been frustrated by my learning environment: frustrated by tests that did nothing to test my knowledge, frustrated by systems that discouraged me from communicating and thinking creatively,” she said.
Gaucher recommends IB courses to students who feel dissatisfied with the normal honors or AP classes as IB’s goal to enrich students offered her a new perspective on learning.
“IB classes have helped me realize that real learning is actually fun and really not that bad,” she said.
Junior Abby Jackson believes that IB’s challenging rigor exceeds that of AP or honors classes.
“I felt as though I wasn’t learning as much as I could have in my AP and Honors classes,” Jackson said.
As a sophomore awaiting her first year in IB, Jackson expected lots of writing and individual work similar to a college setting.
“IB is different because it is a lot of work in small groups and more seminar based. I think that has to be my favorite part,” she said.
For Jackson, Theory of Knowledge has to be her favorite IB course. The class is unlike any other since it teaches the fundamentals of knowledge and how one uses it. Theory of Knowledge allows the student to analyze various forms of content from all perspectives, urging them to justify their reasonings.
“Theory of Knowledge has helped me understand my beliefs on abstract and fundamental topics and ideas that we don’t commonly discuss in school,” junior Soren Ogleman said.
Junior Zayyan Masud serves as another testament to the new and improved learning approach with the IB curriculum.
“They challenge me by taking deep dives behind the reasons for things instead of just giving answers,” Masud said.
Most of this year’s IB classes have a relatively small class size, each student being familiar with one another as they took the same prerequisites last year.
“It’s a lot of writing but it’s fun because I have my friends in all of my classes,” Masud said.
Ogleman accurately gauged IB’s high level of course rigor when she chose to be on the full IB Diploma route last year. Despite this, he has no regrets.
“I expect IB will help me on my journey to become a better student and contributor to my community with its long-term, meaningful projects and unique class structure,” Ogleman said.
Although the course rigor of IB exceeds that of its AP, DE, or honors counterparts, our current IB students find themselves adjusting quite well to a new and fresh learning environment.
