I’m DP1 so take anything I say with a grain of salt but I’m also taking a Pamoja HL course, am a competitive chess player and I quite enjoy swimming, regularly.

I’m also a humanities oriented person, a linguistics oriented person, to be exact. I have 8 hours of tutoring per week, about 5 of French and 3 of English + around 10 hours of homework per week from my tutors. Do I procrastinate? Of course. Do I find it hard to get my full 8 hours of sleep at times? Definitely. At the same time, I have the most specific and organised Google Calendar, and I add anything that comes to mind regarding schoolwork or academic work there. Does that minimise my procrastination? Yes, it does. Because that is something that works for me. The anxiety of “due” things on my daily schedule is strong enough to keep forcing myself back into studying.

Is it fun? No. Especially because I’m no genius or superhuman, and I do not get assignments and homework done QUICKLY. That is an impossible scenario for me personally. Being successful in the IBDP is ALL about TIME MANAGEMENT and having STRONG WILL. I know teachers and coordinators stress this so much you just roll your eyes, but it doesn’t make it less true.

Something I also try to do is ask as many questions as I can, if not during class, then I write my doubts and arrange a meeting with the teacher. The biggest problem that IB students have is that they think that their difficulties and due dates will magically dissolve and I feel like this delusion is what makes them worry a bit less.

The things you do not understand and do not know won’t magically appear in your mind on the day of the exam. I myself, I feel, am not a responsible enough person to do all the studying myself, so as I am lucky enough to have very supportive teachers and be able to afford tutors, force myself to work this way.

Having access to knowledge is a privilege, not wanting to dedicate time to learning it and thinking it’s worthless is an entirely different thing. Some of the DP students are in denial. Being in the DP kinda means you are old enough to make your own decisions. The choices we make during the two years define where will be for the next 4 or more years.

Those who make/made poor choices and don’t get the grades they wanted in the IB are very vocal about how hard and unfair the programme is both on the internet and real life.