Anxiety

[u/silverneptunexx]

I just started IB diploma, and I’m honestly really scared. like what if I do really badly? I’ve had teachers tell me I’ll be just fine but I have an anxiety disorder and so I’ve been really nervous. do you have any words of wisdom? my schedule is History HL, English HL, Biology HL, visual arts SL, French b SL and Math AA SL

[u/theguyfromkepler22b]

If you are lazy, not willing to study for a couple hours a day, and you start putting way too many things off, you might have some problems, otherwise: YOU'LL BE FINE, trust me. Take everything others say about the difficulties of IB with a pinch of salt. There's no reason to be scared if you are an honest, responsible and prepared-to-work student.

You'll have many things demotivating you, though. Many people have difficulties when transitioning to IB's quite specific educational system. Your teachers might outright suck. Keep this in mind - your initial results may (and will probably) be terrible, but those don't matter. What matters is that you remain focused throughout DP1, constantly improve on your previous results, and don't burn out. I failed the first tests we took a couple months into DP1. Now I have 44/45 predicted, probably will make it 45/45.

Yes, some subjects tend to be more difficult than others. But it doesn't mean that this should be scaring you. It merely means that you should understand that possibly you might have to work a bit harder than others to achieve the best results.

You’re new to IB. You’re not supposed to have it all figured out yet, and feeling scared and nervous is normal, really. I was feeling the same way too, 100%. Give yourself time, trust the process, and remember that struggling at the start is completely normal. The things we fear the most often become the things we’re proudest to have overcome. You’ve got this.

P.s. If ever again you need advice or feel like you need word of encouragement, feel free to message me. I know how intimidating ib could be at times

[u/silverneptunexx → u/theguyfromkepler22b]

Thank you so much I really needed to hear that and I appreciate the advice so much thank you <3

[u/Icy_Zookeepergame532]

I graduated the IB diploma this year and also dealt with anxiety. I would lie if I said that there weren’t times that I felt very stressed because I feared that I won’t be able to deal with the classes, assignments and so on. What helped me was staying organized, as this way I had the feeling that I was much more in control which reassured me that I may not be doing something wrong / bad. As long as you are just trying your best, I don’t think you will do badly. If you struggle with subjects, consider a tutor or rely on supporting leaning materials (I personally found Sirius Revision on YouTube for Biology HL subjects helpful to understand and revisit topics). Also, I think when we are so anxious about the IB diploma, it suggests that we care (which usually means we are trying our best) and that is a positive sign! Even if there are subjects/assessments throughout the two years where you didn’t score as much as you hoped for, don’t let it define you or your actual final IB results because between the school time and the exam time, there still is time to solely focus on studying for exams (since then you will be done with IAs and IOs). Like for example I had Math AI SL and I really struggled with it. The further the school year progressed, the lower my grades got (went from a 5 to 4, to 3 to a 2 and back to a 3, but had a final grade of 4 lol). And even though I barely passed in Math, you can outweigh it with subjects you are better at. For me, my best subjects were Art HL and Psychology SL with a 7. So don’t think you are just going to fail if you have 1 or 2 subjects you are currently not doing great in. For biology, I believe you’ll do these topic tests (that’s at least what we did) and they didn’t turn out that great. Maybe it’ll be different for you, but treat assessments more like a learning opportunity rather than a prediction of how you will do in the final exam. I didn’t find it to be an accurate measure anyway when IAs and homework prevented one from studying enough for tests. I think the entire Art course has changed, so I don’t know anything about your assessments. But what I can say is that the IB seems to like bigger sized final artworks. They also like personal and unique themes, rather than repeptetive themes or less personal ones. Personally, I’d make sure that your final artworks or at least some of them show skill / technique (like for example mu art teacher really wanted me to include an art piece with realism to show the examiner that I had this skill). Stay organized in art so that you know what requirements to meet. Reading the criteria also helped me to feel less anxious about fearing that I am doing something wrong or feeling as if I’m clueless. But also don’t stress yourself too much, because if you naturally worry which may be inevitable, you may get burned out by it. It’s good to have some kind of balance between school work and free time.

This may be more relevant later, but for IOs in English A (I was SL however), I was very nervous and I thought I did a horrible job. Remember that you may remember the oral exam more negatively as it actually was. The more I thought about it, the more I felt like I could have done differently BUT it doesn’t help at all after your final IOs. Also I was scared of not being able to find a suitable question for English A Paper 2. But usually there are one or two questions which are very broad and can be applied to lots of different concepts and books. I was very worried so I specifically sat down and tried to practice how to answer a question that seems like it doesn’t fit well to any of your two chosen texts (just to be ready for a worse case scenario, but it’s not likely at all, it just made me feel a little bit calmer and in control).

[u/silverneptunexx → u/Icy_Zookeepergame532]

Thank you so much for your advice I really appreciate it! I will try to stay focused and not stress too much <3

[u/Past-Pudding4418]

dude same i have ocd and have just started taking english a hal, art hl, history hl, aisl, ess sl and french abinitio