What do you think about the IB DP

I was 16 when I started with the IB DP; however I did not feel ready for the program yet. I started middle school in a public Belgian school, but I changed schools in the middle of my 3rd year and started the IB MYP Diploma. Here I immediately noticed that the educational level was drastically lower compared to my old school, which made me a bit uncomfortable. The next year and a half, I got used to a system that didn't require me to put in a lot off effort; I became unfamiliar to the ways off studying and exams that I had been building up over the last 3 years. So, when I finally got to the IB DP program, which required more effort from me, it was noticeably more challenging. ) Additionally, I only had the chance to have physical lessons for about 1 month and 2 weeks; Poland was entering a new lockdown. An 7-8 month lockdown followed, which not only challenged me academically, but very much mentally too. To this day I still get anxious about the thought off having a new lockdown; I don't ever want to experience the same. The restrictions felt like my basic human right of education was taken away, because even though we had online classes, halfway into the lockdown I had completely collapsed when it came to motivation for school. It took me a long time to recover but I still carry the consequences as I lack some theory that I should have seen.

Right now I am in my second year. While this year has notably improved, I still struggle because of the IB DP Program. I have this feeling of resentment towards school, because I associate it with everything that happened last year, and the fear of a new painful lockdown keep haunting me as it looks more likely that we are headed towards that direction. Nonetheless, the IB DP Program has also benefitted in a way. My writing skills have massively improved, I made amazing friends from all around the world, and I get to focus on the classes and topics that truly fit me and interest me. I love the history lessons; business management is going well and is very interesting; however I do struggle with Physics and mathematics. The (mock) exams are coming up soon, and they are stressing me out because of the amount of curriculum I still need to see and revisit, but I am confident that I will make it.

The IB DP program itself has it's advantages and disadvantages; it broadens the perspective, allows you to focus more on the practical side of things and adds interesting extras like CAS and TOK, but it fails to teach the students to memorize everything which is needed/useful. We are expected to use the things given to us by the curriculum and explore them further, rather than study everything from a textbook and memorize it for the exams. I like it, but I also think the system is flawed.