an honest reflection on not receiving my IB diploma

Today I want to talk to you guys about something that I was insecure about for a really long time and something that only my family and my really close friends know about me.

And that’s the fact that I actually didn’t receive my IB diploma from high school. And so for those of you who don’t know, the IB program essentially stands for International Baccalaureate and only a certain number of schools in the nation have it.

And it’s basically like AP except with the goal of IB they want everyone to basically be more well-rounded. So in addition to taking more difficult classes, you have community service hours that you have to do.

In my case, it was both junior and senior year. We had those requirements. You have an extended essay that you have to do on a topic that you choose. You have other projects and things like that for classes known as IA’s or internal assessments.

And on top of all of that, in addition to having harder classes, by time junior and senior year come around and you’re starting to take those exams, out of your six IB classes, three of them have to be higher level and the other three have to be standard level.

So for me, my three higher level classes were business, history and English. And my three standard level classes were Spanish, math and biology. My freshman and sophomore year things were going really well.

I was really motivated and because my grades were really good. My second semester sophomore year I got straight A’s and then I think junior year the way that it was your freshman and sophomore year you’re in what’s called the pre-IB program and that’s basically just geared to get you ready for junior and senior year. By the time junior year came around the real IB program started and I definitely noticed the the increase in difficulty and the increase in coursework. Because of that the same amount of work that would get me A’s and B’s freshman and sophomore year all of a sudden was getting me C’s. I just feel like I never recovered from from just seeing that dip in my GPA.

And especially by the time senior year came around, I feel like I was so ready to be done. I had senioritis like everyone else. And what also didn’t help was at the time I struggled with self-confidence and insecurity.

And not only did that show in terms of schoolwork, but also in terms of trying to talk to girls and things like that, I really struggled and I felt my insecurity with girls and things like that just followed over into my grades.

And just not having that confidence in myself in terms of school and performing just really hurt my grades. And so by the time senior year rolled around, I knew that at this point, when I was like, well, I’m applying for schools, if I can just get into a school, at that point I can just kind of cruise to graduation.

And that’s essentially what I did. I ended up getting into school and I really just stopped trying. And what’s scary is the school that I ended up going to at the end of my senior year almost started off on a bad note. So not only did I not get my diploma, but they also sent me a letter saying, hey, we noticed that your last semester, your grades were lower than what your GPA was at the time that we accepted you.

And this is just a warning that essentially you don’t wanna keep going down this path because you don’t wanna end up being on academic probation to start your college career. And so that I feel like was pretty scary and that was definitely, I guess, like a short-term wake-up call to just try not to get into trouble academically.

To let my grades slip to the point that they did. And I also feel like, I mean, going back to IB, one thing that happened to me was by the time exams rolled around, I had taken the Spanish exam my junior year.

And I had gotten a five on it. And personally, I had felt that Spanish was my weakest subject area. And I think for me to get a five on it, I really, I really just let my guard down as far as studying.

Like aside from Spanish, I studied for Spanish because I knew it was my weakest subject area. But for all of my other classes, I didn’t study at all. So literally for English, it was just all of the in class reviews we did.

That was essentially all that I did. And I even remember it got so bad that the day before my, I believe it was the day before my biology exam. I was at the gym with some of my friends until like one in the morning.

Then we went to IHOP. And so by the time I ended up getting home, it was about two o’clock or 2:30. And I remember sleeping in and thinking that my exam started at 11 o’clock, but it actually started at 1030.

So I had almost actually missed that exam. Fortunately, I was able to still take the exam and everything. But I think I had just gotten so complacent. I was so ready to be done that I just didn’t study for any of my tests aside from Spanish.

And I just assumed that because I had scored so high in Spanish that everything else would just kind of be a cakewalk comparatively. And so, yeah, it was tough. It was the hardest for me because my parents could see that I wasn’t really trying.

And they had told me constantly that I need to be putting in more effort and I need to be more dedicated. But at the time, you don’t really understand that because I feel like I was so ready to just start college and just be done, that I just figured, I was just trying to do the bare minimum and still get by.

So, you know, I think one of the things I learned from not getting my diploma though, was just not to let short-term feelings, I guess, get in the way of long-term goals.

So essentially, you might not feel like studying today. but it’s not necessarily about thinking about your feelings right now in the moment. It’s about thinking about how things will unfold down the road.

So you might not feel like doing an assignment, but you need to think about, you know, two, three, four months down the road when the semester ends and you get your grades, how will that affect your GPA?

So yeah, you guys, I just wanted to make a post real quick and talk to you guys about my struggles with the IB program and just hope that essentially it can give you guys that are going through the program or have gone through the program and maybe didn’t get your diplomas as well, just some value and essentially just letting you guys know that you’re not the only one out there you know that is struggling right now or it’s going through a rough patch in school.

Yeah, so I just wanted to make this post for you guys and you know, if you’ve stayed all this time, thanks for reading. Let me know what you guys think in the comments below!