The "Which IB subjects should I choose" Thread

These are the subjects I've (finally) settled upon for IB:

HLs - English Language and Literature, Economics, Computer Science
SLs - Visual Art, Maths, Spanish ab initio

At my school, several people who were, according to my teacher, very able-mathematicians ended up swapping maths for maths studies because they found SL - yes, standard level - too hard. In fact, the entire department hasn't even given anyone currently achieving a "B" or below in iGCSE maths the opportunity to take SL maths (much less HL), so most (including me *waves "I-almost-got-an-A-flag"*) are stuck with maths studies :P

I'm not entirely sure about workload, though; I'm mostly going off of IB talks I had this year and acquaintances whom I talked to in regards to my choices.

Personally, I think that you should take SL maths especially as you're planning to go into law; there isn't an overwhelming need for maths in that career, I believe, and SL should suffice

That's a very interesting subject combination! What do you plan on studying at university?

And good luck with IB

Visual Art + Comp Science should hopefully lead me into the game design field. If that doesn't work out, my plan is to be a screenwriter / novelist, which is where English comes into play. I know that I should probably take HL Art, but I haven't done Art as a subject before. Alsom I've heard that HL Art is extremely time consuming and I'm not extremely skilled at Art - a little above average, at best. I haven't taken Computer Science before either, but programming can be learned - it's not as talent based as Art - so hopefully my subject choices don't bite me in the ass, haha. Economics is only there because I like it as a subject more than the alternatives (Psychology, Business or History).

I want to study medicine at university. Is the IB a good idea for me?
And What are the pros and cons?
Thanks

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Some universities are really starting to like the IB, and it's great preparation for university. It's a fair bit of work and it'll keep you busy, but a smooth sea never made a skilled sailor.

I think the IB HL science subjects are great courses, and that's probably the only bit that matters for Medicine.

That's cool My best friend does HL art - she actually switched from SL to HL and moved economics down to SL, her reasoning was that there was very little between HL/SL art and that she'd rather spend her extra time working on art rather than economics since its important for her university course and career. In your case, stick with SL if you're not confident in your art skills but I have got to say that you will make a lot of progress throughout the course in terms of the quality of your work, my friend's drawing skills and what not have improved quite a lot in just a couple of months (we're in IB 1). You made the right choice by going with econ (not biased at all ) - its an extremely interesting course and the theories you'll learn about can be mostly applied to real life so you'll benefit from the knowledge you gain in that class irrespective of your university/career plans.Plus, its an easy 6 or 7. But I must add that if you don't end up enjoying it seriously consider taking psychology, its just as interesting (but is a ton more work lol).

Some universities are really starting to like the IB, and it's great preparation for university. It's a fair bit of work and it'll keep you busy, but a smooth sea never made a skilled sailor.

I think the IB HL science subjects are great courses, and that's probably the only bit that matters for Medicine.

Oh cool thanks
So what should I take for HL?
What do u think will be the best combination?
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HL Chemistry and Bio, rest are entirely up to you.

What about oxbridge in particular? The same?

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Oh really? I actually heard that there was a huge difference between HL and SL Art. I'm fairly good at sketching, but otherwise not that much into art, so I think I'll be average-ish. On the other hand, I quite like Economics after studying it in IGCSE for the past three years, and from what I've seen of the class, it's not that much of a jump between IGCSE Economics and IB Economics. If what you say is true, I may decide after a few weeks of class to switch Eco down to SL and Art up to HL.

Yea definitely. If you think there's no way you'll do well at maths hl then clearly do sl instead. But be sure about it, there's some pretty good books for IB mathematics out there and you can teach yourself a lot of it if your teacher is crap.