Is this considered as a relative easy course combination?

[ibsweden144]

In my school, we are currently choosing which course that we will do next year for IBDP, I have always been an ambitious overachiever. However, I recently got diagnosed with a lot of psychological disorders and my psychiatrist told me to stop being ambitious and take it easy in the IB, she told me that I MUST choose the easiest course combination that I can choose.

I chose IB History HL, IB Math HL, IB Chem HL, IB English Text and Performance SL A1, IB Swedish SL, IB Psychology SL

But my IB-coordinator states that combination is considered to be a suicidal combination which requires a lot of hard work, essay writing etc. Even I want to work as hard as possible, I still have to follow my psychiatrist's suggestion.

So now I chose these courses instead:

IB Math HL

IB Chemistry HL

(I must take these two since I want to become a chemist, my Chemistry level is extremely high, I can understand 80% of the higher level course materials even I am still in Pre-DP, so that won't be a problem. However, my math teacher said that Math HL is definitely one of the hardest subject and requires rigorous work, is it really that horrible?)

IB English B HL (Just for an easy 7)

IB History SL (How hard is it?)

IB Swedish SL A1 (I LOVE SWEDISH, this is pure fun for me)

IB Film studies (My coordinator said that they don't have exams in the end so students suffer from less stress. But I am not an artistic person, actually Art is the only subject that I don't have an A in at this moment, I have a F in Art, but is Film Studies so related to Art considering it is classified as Group 6?)

OR

IB Business Management SL (Sounds fun but is it hard?)

OR

IB ITGS SL (Easiest????)

Please help me guys, tell me if this combination is hard or not and please tell me which one is relative easy in these courses (IB ITGS, Business Management, Film Studies, Psychology)

<3

[Eastcoast93]

okay here's my opinion

math hl- hard, requires insane amounts of work- but if you like math why not

chemistry hl- also very challenging but you like chemistry so why not

english b hl- are you english or not? universities may not like this if english is your first language so bear that in mind, if not then it should be fine

history sl- decent amount of work required but not too challenging, compared to hl quite a nice course i would say

swedish- sounds good, a1sl is a good one to take

itgs sl- itgs students tend to do bad! no idea why, only two people in my school take it but it seems like the subject itself is hard

business and management- considered a "soft subject" but certainly interesting if you are into it. check whether universities will like this subject (i know many in the uk don't)

film studies- never heard of it, never saw it but i am pretty sure it is quite challenging- if your not the creative/artistic person DON'T take it, it is an artistic subject!

psychology- certainly a good choice if you are interested in it, standard level should be fine though I heard there isn't such a big difference between hl and sl

so generally it depends where you want to study, where you live and what you want to do? that ib certainly isn't "easy" but you will do fine, chemistry and math are very well accepted at universities due to their difficulty, for the final subject if I were you i would take psychology from the list you gave, mainly because i know the other subjects are regarded as "soft subjects"- not necessarily because they are easy but because they are not well known.

also don't look for easy SLs, they are all manageable, the main thing is that you care about it and you enjoy doing it- otherwise any subject will be hard!

Edited May 15, 2012 by Eastcoast93

[nametaken]

In my school, we are currently choosing which course that we will do next year for IBDP, I have always been an ambitious overachiever. However, I recently got diagnosed with a lot of psychological disorders and my psychiatrist told me to stop being ambitious and take it easy in the IB, she told me that I MUST choose the easiest course combination that I can choose.

I chose IB History HL, IB Math HL, IB Chem HL, IB English Text and Performance SL A1, IB Swedish SL, IB Psychology SL

But my IB-coordinator states that combination is considered to be a suicidal combination which requires a lot of hard work, essay writing etc. Even I want to work as hard as possible, I still have to follow my psychiatrist's suggestion.

So now I chose these courses instead:

IB Math HL

IB Chemistry HL

(I must take these two since I want to become a chemist, my Chemistry level is extremely high, I can understand 80% of the higher level course materials even I am still in Pre-DP, so that won't be a problem. However, my math teacher said that Math HL is definitely one of the hardest subject and requires rigorous work, is it really that horrible?)

IB English B HL (Just for an easy 7)

IB History SL (How hard is it?)

I don't particularly think that your higher com

IB Swedish SL A1 (I LOVE SWEDISH, this is pure fun for me)

IB Film studies (My coordinator said that they don't have exams in the end so students suffer from less stress. But I am not an artistic person, actually Art is the only subject that I don't have an A in at this moment, I have a F in Art, but is Film Studies so related to Art considering it is classified as Group 6?)

OR

IB Business Management SL (Sounds fun but is it hard?)

OR

IB ITGS SL (Easiest????)

Please help me guys, tell me if this combination is hard or not and please tell me which one is relative easy in these courses (IB ITGS, Business Management, Film Studies, Psychology)

<3

I don't particularly believe that your higher combination is difficult. In fact, I think it's more than doable in comparison to my higher combination for instance. History SL is good, and you can definitely do it if you enjoy history and can remember dates, etc. I'm no expert on ITGS, Business Management, Film Studies and Psychology, but from what I've seen from Psychology at my school is that you have to remember loooooads of case studies, and perhaps going with something like Film Studies would be easier. But again, I'm no expert. Good luck with making your choices. You're in for one heck of a journey with something like the IB.

[Sean Banan Janse]

Off topic maybe; but what school/town are you in? When I looked around at IB-schools in Sweden I never saw one with film

Anyhow, Psychology, Math and Chemistry HL is probably the worst combination ever. Psychology is interesting, but there's a lot of work to it. Chemistry annd Math you find interesting, and there's about equal work in chemistry as psychology I think.. Math HL I hear is a killer, they didn't offer it to my year, but the PDPs will be able to take it, teachers laugh at their dreams of high grades there...

Swedish A1 SL is awesomely easy, if you're somewhat interested at least. English B is probably the easiest subject in IB, several friends of mine were guaranteed sevens when choosing it, "I could probably let you do the exams right now and you'd get a 7" one guy heard in October of IB1, when he switched from A1.

While film does not have any examinations, you still have plenty of IAs, which are the real tough stuff in IB, and if you're not very creative I don't think you would do very well, but if you're interested; go for it!

All I can tell you about history SL is that apparently there's a big difference between it and HL... And that history is interesting... If B&M is anything like economics, it shouldn't be too hard, at least not on S&L.

Hope I've said something of value!

[Crazy Gemini]

Film studies, I did theatre, so don't know much about the assessments of that. However, if the assessments are ANYTHING like those of theatre, they'll stress you our more than the exams ever will because of the sheer amount of work that needs to be done for them, the research, and the essays and so on... It's not so much about how artistic you can be, but how good your ideas are and how well you can put your ideas and research across in writing, pictures etc. and also the strength of your ideas, their impact on society etc.

If you're meant to be trying to decrease stress as much as possible, then don't do this subject! It's highly stressful and I've felt like quitting about a million times.

But like I said, I do theatre, not film, so there will be differences I'm sure...

[kiwi.at.heart]

Maths HL is a very loaded subject. I would not be exaggerating if I said I spent just as much time on maths HL as all my other subjects combined. I loved the subjected, but if you are looking for a easier 2 years, HL maths is the first subject to avoid. That being said, some unit might need it for chemistry so i would just check some of the unit you might end up at to see what they require.

HL Chem isn't the easiest subject in the world, but if you have a good teacher its fine and as you said, you need it.

Back at school HL history was a common source of complaining of the amount of work so especially if you are doing maths and chemistry at HL, i would avoid it.

The other subjects that I would have any idea on is film and business. For film it can be a very stressful subject, just due to the amount of hours I saw my friends put in and stress over it. While come exams you might have less exams, I can tell that final exams aren't the time you are the most stressed, its a couple of months beforehand when every IA is due and with film having so many, if you rant organised it will be hell. Business on the other hand is the easiest subjects not to do much work in and still do well. I ended with a 6 in HL and half of my business classes no work was down in the subject but rather catching up on all my other subjects. It may depend on for teacher (my teacher couldn't care less what we did) but if you are looking for a easy subject I would recommend this.

[Guest CasaNova]

i have itgs but HL.. i can say that the exams were easy for me, but every year there are so many students with final grade 4 that i cannot udnerstand why,.. people just get bad marks as an overall score.. i hope i will have 5

there is not much to learn in itgs.. it is much more whether you are interested in it or not. if you keep reading all the time articles about IT than you will not have any problems.. and dont forget.. ITGS is not programming it is about how much and how ITGS influences on "global" society!! society is the keyword(privacy, reliability, integrity, security...)

[lollero]

I personally wouldn't take History SL. You'll end up doing a lot of work anyways, and paper 3 is actually usually easier than paper 2 (at least for me it is, and from what I've heard its pretty common), so by taking HL you actually don't do that much more but you'll be more likely to get a better grade. (My teacher actually said that in some schools they recommend weaker students to take HL instead of SL because they're more likely to do better when their grade isn't so dependent on what they get from paper 2.)

And if you'll need HL math for university etc take it, but if you won't, I'd think twice about it. It's pretty hard, and even though I've always been good at math and usually work hard it was still my weakest subject and at times I would have wished nothing more than to go back and take SL, would have probably left me with much more time to concentrate on my other subjects.

[Tony Stark]

Bus. Man and ITGS are both considered very easy. I would advise against Film: even though it's generally considered a 'soft' subject, from what I've seen of Film students I know, it like many Group 6s requires a hell of a lot of work. History is also a rather difficult subject, even at SL. I do Eng A1 HL, Chem HL, Economics HL, French B SL and Maths SL this year; yet I would rate History SL last year the hardest subject I've ever experienced.

[Bernardo Silva]

Math HL - Considered the hardest IB subject of all. Don't take it unless you are very very good at math and can do it easily, most math HL students I know, even though they are extremely good at it, still get really stressed.

Chemistry HL - Not that hard even if you don't have a large foundation of knowledge in Chemistry. You learn all of it (even some core concepts you should have already known) in HL so all you have to do is pay attention and study for the tests. It's my hardest HL but I still have a 7 in it but that's because I study quite a lot for Chemistry tests and I did well in Pre-IB Chem. If you like it, go for it.

English B HL - If you're a native speaker or speak it fluently then it should be a very easy 7 and you'll be with people that don't speak it very fluently, giving you a certain advantage.

Film SL - Heard it can be stressful because you do a lot of film analyses and essays and so on and you definitely have to have an artistic and creativeflair (more towards expressive arts and not visual arts like painting, you don't necessarily have to be a good art student to do well in it so long as you understand the concepts that makes a movie good).

History SL - HL isn't that different really, you just cover some extra topics but the exam is quite a lot harder (Paper 3 is 3 essays in 2.5 hours with no breaks). SL can be time consuming especially with the IA and if your teacher will assign homework. You must do the reading otherwise you'll fall behind and do poorly on the essays. Oh and you have to be good at writing detailed analytical essays. The syllabus itself is very interesting (WW1, Russian Revolution, Hitler and the Nazis, WW2) and I recommend it even if you only have a mild interest in History.

Swedish SL - Yeah, i have no idea about that but if you can do well in it and have fun then sure go for it.

Overall, your schedule doesn't seem too hard and although you'll feel some stress common to all IB students, it shouldn't be as much as say my IB stress when exams come (look at my signature to see what classes I take etc.)