Quote Originally Posted by blackie View Post
tintern mate
what subjects did you do?
bet you were a 40+ student :P
would like to hear why you chose it too, since ive spilled my guts
Tintern? Urgh... not my first choice to be surrounded by girls for... shudder... but I would've lived. As I'm sure you would've. Oh man, you have had the year 11-12 of a lifetime. Colour me green!

I did English HL, Economics HL, History HL, Methods, Physics and Spanish. I have to say that in hindsight the best subject for me was Spanish b/c it's opened so many doors for me in life. I spent a good while working and living in Brazil courtesy of Spanish. Yes, Portuguese isn't the same but they're close enough to understand what's going on. When I got back, that Brazil experience changed a lot of things in life and allowed me to start collecting again.


Why did I choose IB? I actually wanted to go overseas actually. I'd travelled to the US and UK scouting schools, talking to administrators to get a feel. I really wanted to travel. At the end, the admissions dept at the University of Chicago said to me if I scored a mininmum 42, I was in w/ a 50% scholarship. I fell short at 41. My own fault really. I've always been rather complacent with my intelligence and ability (still am) and thought I couldn't fail. Well, I guess I did in the end and it taught me a thing or two. I was virtually untouchable for 2 years in high school b/c of my raw talent. Head of School caught me on many occassions just kicking footy or having a hit when I was supposed to be in class (as you know, we don't have spares like those in the VCE) and just played dumb. I pulled the marks, won the economic/maths/lit awards for the school, they didn't care. But in the end I was taught a very harsh lesson in humility. Talent and ability will only take you so far in life.

I dunno, I don't regret it. Sometimes I wonder what it would've been like but uni has been good to me here and that's how eventually I met my missus who've I've been with for 3 years now - longer than my 6 month average before that. I've gotten to enjoy a lot more years in Australia while travelling as well as had other amazing opportunities in the workforce whereas my principle reason for wanting to go to Chicago was for the prestige which would've been nice but ultimately maybe not made that big a difference as I would've always returned to Australia no matter what.

As for the matter of prestige and IB. It's there, Gok, I assure you. The VCE is inferior to the HSC but at the end of the day both of those are inferior to the IB. Recognition comes from being measured against the best in the world and being accepted to have achieved a level of quality that is global. You show your VCE or HSC to the US universities or the European ones, your odds of a call back are minimal. When I was visiting overseas universities, just the fact that I had a scholarship to study the IB meant I was treated very well and with great interest. I hadn't even started my IB at that point yet.

When I was interviewing for graduate work, you have no idea what an advantage it was b/c many people are fascinated when they interview you and its a great opener b/c it sets out the fact that you are a high achiever and someone who is willing to do the hard yards. Doing the IB makes a few statements about you that you don't have to say. That's the cold hard truth. If you did the VCE/HSC, you're just back with the rest of the pack. Of course, there are other defining features in a job interview process too but IB will always help you in terms of recognition especially at the screening stages.

The other aspect is that like Blackie was pointing out the IB gives you skills that the HSC/VCE never will. The VCE/HSC system is so centric around memorisation, exams and assessment tasks whereas IB is far more focused on learning, technique and skill sets. At the time I did IB, the opportunity to learn in an autonomously and explore issues for yourself taught me a lot about efficient studying and ways to frame things. It's been invaluable for me at uni b/c I've been able to be a bum for all of my uni life yet maintain marks that other people just freak out at. Yes, I'm a very able person but IB gave me a lot of the basic skills and mind set to help me be more efficient. Things like the Theory of Knowledge and the Extended Essays are exercises in spoon fed or repetitious learning; they force you to open your mind and look at how you manage things.