A Quick Note About Me:
My name is James Halt. I am an International Baccalaureate
(IB) diploma recipient. I recently graduated from City Honors School in 2024
and am now a first-year student in college.
The purpose of this mini-article is to share with you, the
current Juniors and Seniors in the IB Diploma Program at City Honors, as well
as future IB Diploma students, how I found immense value in the IB Diploma
Program. In addition to how the program has helped me tremendously so far into
my time in college.
The IB Diploma Program helped me join clubs and discover
new areas of interest in college.
Initially, you may not think that the IB Diploma Program, a
program focused mainly on academics, would help someone join clubs but in my
experience it does. Thanks to the program's requirement for Creativity,
Activity, and Service (CAS) I was encouraged to explore a wide range of
activities, many of which I had little experience with. Joining a wide variety
of clubs and learning about a variety of different topics in high school for
CAS broadened my perspective on life and helped me to discover activities I now
enjoy. Joining an array of clubs was something that I knew I wanted to carry
over into college. Without being in the IB Diploma Program and having to
fulfill CAS I am sure I would never have joined so many clubs and tried so many
different experiences.
The IB Diploma Program helped improve my research and
organizational skills.
Working on the IB Diploma’s required internal assessments
(IAs) and Extended Essay should be seen as opportunities to improve independent
research skills. Through my experience in college so far I have found these
skills necessary as in many college courses you must self-study to learn the
material. Thanks to the IB Diploma Program I have been prepared for these
courses. Students in the IB Diploma Program are better prepared for college
lectures thanks to self-study opportunities like the Extended Essay and the
internal assessments.
The IB Diploma Program has helped me better myself by
pushing me to engage in new activities for CAS and by requiring me to learn
more about the topics I selected for the internal assessments (IA’s) and the
Extended Essay. The IB Diploma Program holds values that should not be taken
for granted.
