is my course plan too hard?

[hedgehogsarecool]

hi! I'm entering the IB next year and am very unsure whether to continue with my plan, as many people have told me it will be too hard. my school is making me take literature and history as HL, and the only math courses it has are Math AA HL and Math AI SL. I'm planning on taking AA HL. I will also do Spanish SL for year 1 and ESS SL for year 2. I also want to take Physics HL, however I'm on the fence about that as it's 4 HLs. I want to go into engineering and I really love and am good at math and physics, I have a 4.0 right now, although take that with a grain of salt because my school is very IB focused so there is not much challenging coursework for 9th and 10th graders. I feel like it would be really ridiculous for me to take the AI SL math because I am VERY skilled at math. For context, my math teacher tried to get me into calculus as a sophomore, which she's only done for 2 other kids in 10 years of teaching (didn't work because school is strict about prerequisites). I'm not bragging, I just want to be clear because you all don't know me and my situation so 4 HLs is probably less hard for than it is for others because of this. I have extracurriculars every day after school for 2 hours, which is part of why I'm worried, except in the spring (when my exams will be). I am not nearly as good at physics as I am at math, but I am decent at it and I really enjoy learning it. Am I likely going to have a very difficult IB experience if I choose the physics HL on top of my other 3? 

[tewtadle]

If you are as good at math as you claim then you should be able to survive. (Not necessarily do well) And if your school is like mine then you can take an HL down to SL and vice versa for a couple of months after starting the 11th grade (DP Year 1). Spanish might be annoying for you in the first year and I might consider taking it out if you aren't good at it/enjoy it. 

Problem is that because of the two classes you are forced to take as HL you basically have to take two other HL's in order to "Customize" your IB to the thing you want to study. But if I were you and your school let's you change a subject from HL to SL I would try it out for the first couple of months and then see if you think you can manage. (Taking into account that the workload will increase in comparison to the first couple of months).

[hedgehogsarecool]

Thank you! I think I will try continuing the course plan and be very prepared to switch Physics to SL if the first few months is anywhere near the maximum I can handle, since it gets harder from there. I will check if I'm able to take out Spanish because it's hard for me but might be a requirement. I'll also check with my school's IB coordinator to see if I could take an HL down if I needed to, I wasn't aware that was a viable option. You're right about the problem being my school's weird thing with forced humanities HLs - I don't want to have to take 4 HLs and if I had the choice I definitely wouldn't do HL English and history. Has anyone here tried taking an SL exam when you took the HL course? Not sure how helpful that would be to lighten the exam load senior year, but my school lets us so I might do that for English or history.

[coolmathkid]

On 1/12/2023 at 10:18 PM, hedgehogsarecool said:

Thank you! I think I will try continuing the course plan and be very prepared to switch Physics to SL if the first few months is anywhere near the maximum I can handle, since it gets harder from there. I will check if I'm able to take out Spanish because it's hard for me but might be a requirement. I'll also check with my school's IB coordinator to see if I could take an HL down if I needed to, I wasn't aware that was a viable option. You're right about the problem being my school's weird thing with forced humanities HLs - I don't want to have to take 4 HLs and if I had the choice I definitely wouldn't do HL English and history. Has anyone here tried taking an SL exam when you took the HL course? Not sure how helpful that would be to lighten the exam load senior year, but my school lets us so I might do that for English or history.

I think it mostly depends on the difficulty of HL classes at your school. For example, at my school our psychology SL and HL classes are combined (the only difference is what exam we take). I would also suggest taking HL math if you have already done AP stats or a similar class. For me, my best course of advice would be to talk to your friends and their siblings currently taking these classes or having taken them before. They can tell you if it worth it to take one class over another just because of a crappy teacher. 

[hedgehogsarecool]

I have not taken AP Stats, but I may try to research some statistics material over the summer to prepare myself. I was quite worried about the physics HL because there will be a new IB physics teacher next year. However, my dilemma's over, as I recently found out the school is no longer offering HL physics starting next year due to low enrollment. Thanks to everyone who offered advice, I will be taking math as my third HL and SL physics. Does anyone here have experience with college physics in comparison to HL/SL physics, as in, will I be properly prepared? Also, is there a way I could ensure my counselor puts that SL physics is the most advanced physics course the school offers on the secondary school application thing when I apply to colleges? Or something else I can do to make sure they know that? A university near my town that I might like to go to is considered a given for students at my school who do decently in the IB, but the engineering department specifically is harder to get into. I know they'd like to see advanced physics courses and may assume a school with advanced coursework in other core subjects would have more advanced science, or that a student at an IB school who's good at physics would HL in it. Also, yet another question: recommendations for preparing for HL math? I know I've said I'm good at math, and I am, but I really want to make sure I have the necessary knowledge going into it. I go to a public high school that can only invest so much in advanced courses with their funding and they have to go all in on IB to offer the DP, so they have basically nothing to prepare students for IB with challenging courses in grades 9 and 10.