text: international baccalaureate students? hi, i'll be starting my first year as an ib student. this is also the 1st year it will be at our school. how difficult did you find the program, and what should i expect? hello.   i wasn't a full ib student, i was only partial ib.  but from my experience i think you should expect a lot of reading.  and make sure to really keep up with the work because of the large amount of material covered (both in class and homework) it's really difficult to catch up if you fall behind.  also, the work did help prepare me for college.    the only difference between the pre-ib courses and non-ib courses at my school was that pre-ib courses just had more work.  for example, in my pre-ib chemistry class i would study with a non-ib friend (we had the same teacher) and it was exactly the same type of material being covered and same type of exams.  the only difference was that i had to do more lab write-ups and the lab write-ups were a different format than the regular chemistry section.  the next year when it was ib chemistry the same topics were covered (but we went more in depth) and new topics were covered.  the class seemed to go at a faster pace and there seemed to be more labs and we also had to do a paper (for the environmental section on the ib exam).   i thought the ib classes were like any of my other classes in the sense that there were ups (where they seemed really easy) and downs.  there were times when i wanted to just drop out of the classes and i know for the full ib students it was especially worse but in the end it's worth it.  it might seem like it's something that's difficult and beyond doing but it's really not and you'll see that you really could do it.  the ib classes really pushed me and helped prepare me for college.  for example the ib chemistry course was just like the general chemistry courses covered at my college (i had to take the courses since the college i attend doesn't accept ib credit...something i should have really looked into before selecting the college) and the college math course i had to take was similar to the ib math course at my high school.  also, the amount of reading we had for the ib classes helped prepare me for the reading that has been necessary in some of my college courses.  since i'm used to the amount of reading it doesn't bother me that much whereas some of the other students in my class complain and aren't able to do the finish readings that have been assigned.    i would tell you not to be terrified/worried about the difficulty of the program, especially since it's the first year at your school and so it's going to be new for everybody.  also, as for the ib exams that we had to take at the end of our last year (you do have a while before you even have to think about these) we had looked over copies of the past exams.  our teachers would give us the exam as if it was a real exam in the class and then after taking them we would go over the answers together which allowed us to see which things we needed to go over.  i don't know how they'll do it at your school because it's new there but maybe the ib coordinator or whoever's in charge of the ib program at your school would have old copies of exams from other schools or the ibo itself or maybe they would be able to get them for you to look over but you don't have to really think about that until later.      the best advice i can give, which i've already mentioned, is to just make sure to keep up with the work and stay on top of things (if you don't understand something get your teacher to explain it to you right away).  if you do this you should be fine.  the classes will really push you and when it's all done with you'll be so glad that you were able to do it and see just how much they were able to help.   good luck!