My journey with IB in Denmark

February 17, 2021

My journey with IB in Denmark

Hey guys and welcome to my first blog post!

When my family first decided to move to Denmark in 2018 one of the first steps I had to take was applying to highschool. My dad who has been in the country for a few months already found a "gymnasiet" close to his work that had really great reviews and he suggested I apply there. I prepared the papers and applied late. I was relieved to see an email confirming that I got in.

We moved to Denmark in September and so I started the school a month after everyone else (School in Denmarks starts around the third week of August).

Choosing IB seemed like an only option for me when moving to a country with a language I am not familiar with and having studied in English before. I decided to apply to pre-IB as a preparation for the actual IB and it was the best decision I could have made at the time. My 15 year old self was definitely not ready to just start with IB due to the difference in levels from my previous school. 

I didn't really know what to expect when I started. "Will I make friends?", "Will I manage with the curriculum?", "Will I be okay in a new country?" were only a few of the questions concerning me. 

I was lucky to get into an amazing class, where right from the start I was surrounded by great people. I remember the first day as throught the mist - all of the memories are blurry as I was very much overwhealmed. I was surprised by the welcoming environment and how friendly everyone was.

Subjects in IB
What I like in IB is the free choice of subjects. While we all start with a similar core, we are then split into our own subject combinations. PE and History were obligatory in Pre-IB, but they were not in IB1/2. Different sections included: Individuals & Societies, Business, Science and Creative. 

To my chosen courses I refer to as Societies-Creative, and I must say I have one of the weirdest combinations ever. 

The subjects I have chosen for my IB diploma programme are: English A HL lang-lit, Spanish Ab-initio, Geography HL, ESS,  Maths HL, Art HL and Danish Ab-initio (plus the obligatory TOK - which ends in January of IB2). Even though IB is hard in general I definitely made it even harder for myself by having 4 higher level subjects and an extra subject (Spanish). I do sometimes questions what I did this for, as I do not love the extra work, but I guess I wanted to take out as much as possible from my high school years.

(↑Sample subject choice table from 2019 - there are new subject such as Film offered now)

The IB allows various combinations for everyone's likings. 

When choosing IB one has to keep in mind that it is said to be harder than other programmes. There is a lot of assignments, deadlines and pressure. There are assignments that are internally marked and ones that are externally marked. 

Due to Corona many of my final assignments have been moved from IB1 to IB2 which put more pressure on me (This happened for many), however I did manage to complete most of them by now. 

I must argue that having half of the IB taught online is not the greatest but it does teach discipline and allowed a little more loose schedule. 

Social Life
The IB is not only about studying of course! (Before corona) we had a lot of parties and activities during which we could spend time with our friends and students from other programmes at the school (Sports day is one of the examples:)) My year is a total of 125 students from all over the world, and while we are split into 5 smaller classes (CAS classes) we all tend to spend the lunch breaks together in the common area - we all know eachoher. We also share most of the classes with different people. 

IB might be a lot of work but it is managable, and I am so glad I joined such an international community♡
~ Dominika