Self-study Economics HL extensions?

[meowchelle]

Hi guys,

So I decided to take four HLs, but my scholarship only covers the standard three. The extra fees that I have to pay for each term isn't too much (around €580) but when it is only for one extra class each week, I feel that it isn't worth spending the money. I'm choosing Economics to be the one that I will "drop to SL".

I'm currently asking for permission to self-study the HL extensions in Economics (all the HL bits) and not attend the extra HL lesson (SL and HL study together in the other lessons for Economics).

If I do succeed in persuading them to let me do this, I will be having minimal guidance from the teacher. He's very nice and helpful as a whole, I am sure he won't mind spending some time to explain the confusing HL stuff to me if I ask. However for the most part I'll be studying myself as I won't be in class when he lectures (I can probably copy the homework questions from my friends though!)

Anyway what I want to ask is if this is possible and how difficult will it be to self-study Economics? I can't drop English because I will end up with a different teacher, and not Biology because then I might miss out on certain HL lab experiments, and not Psychology as the teacher will only be too happy to see less people in her HL class, let alone help me self-study HL.

What are the important key things to take note of while self-studying Economics and what are the bits that I will be better off asking my teacher to explain because it is harder to understand by myself?

I need to get a good grade in Economics to prove to my doubtful IB Coordinator about self-studying so that the school will allow me to register it as a HL later!

Thank you!

[ctrls]

Provided you work hard and all, it shouldn't be too difficult in my opinion. The only difference is the added topics and the maths paper, the latter being very easy if you know the formulas.

Added topics would require quite a bit of work though, for micro (topic 1) there's quite a large chunk of HL content which is very different from the other topics. I've only done up to macro (topic 2) so I can't say anything about the other two topics, but the other extensions shouldn't be too bad being mostly added things to talk about in paper 1 - which is especially the case with macro.

Spending that extra fee may be worth it though, I would consider it if you can. While self-study is doable with a good textbook, having a proper teacher can be helpful too. This is especially the case since you have 4 HL's, you do have quite a bit of work on your hands anyways.