Course Selection

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After our orientation week of fun icebreaker activities and exploring Mbabane, things have gotten more intense. This week is Shopping Week – where we hear from various teachers about their respective courses. This week, we pick the six courses that we’ll be taking for the next two years.

Plenty has been written about the IB, but I’ll give you a brief overview. For the two years of the program, you take six courses from six ‘streams’ – three at a higher level, and three at a standard level. The streams are Maths, Sciences, Humanities, Arts, English, and Language. This is one of the many things that distinguish an IB diploma from a typical diploma. At this age, students have typically started leaning towards the arts, or towards STEM. For IB, a student must remain well-rounded. We also do Theory of Knowledge (more on that below) and CAS (or Creativity, Activity, and Service.)

This week is focused on presentations from various teachers, and we’ve been hearing about syllabuses, course loads, and grading requirements.

We’re also hearing from the Theory of Knowledge teachers – a required IB course examining ‘how we know what we know’ – or a deep dive into critical thinking.

Overall, it’s an intimidating process. Our IB2s have told us some horror stories, and even some of the teachers seem to enjoy the general anxiety surrounding doing IB. However, I’m starting to get excited. The majority of the teachers seem enthusiastic, and engaged, and I’m slowly building an idea of who’s going to be in my classes.

I’ve been spending my free time this week with friends, going to the gym, exploring Mbabane, and complaining about cafeteria food. Next week, classes officially start. I’ll keep you updated! Next week I'll be writing about Mbabane, and our day trip around Swaziland. 

PS. Personally, I’ll be taking HL Bio, English Lit, and Global Politics, and SL French, Maths, and Theatre.

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