Q A WITH THE GRADE 12 S

Q & A

Grade 12 answers YOUR questions

Q: how do you deal with people who are not being nice with you? A: Everybody is going to have a different approach to this, but I’ ve found it important to acknowledge that there are always going to be people who don ’t like me, just as there are always going to be people that I don ’t like. I’ ve found it helpful to counteract this by surrounding myself with people I value, and people who value me too. In my experience, it’ s okay not to get along with everybody, even at such a small school where you may feel like you should.

Q: If you love someone of the same sex and you don ’t know how to express it to them, what should you do? A: Hi, Kurt here - I think it’ s important to know that you don ’t have to come out to people you don ’t want to if you don ’t feel safe doing so. However I do understand it’ s hard to keep it to yourself all the time, so you could start by telling the people that you trust. It can feel very lonely keeping your sexuality to yourself all the time, and even if it might not seem like it there is a whole community of allies and other LGBTQ2+ people out there, and at this school, who will support you (including myself, if you ever wanted to reach out)

Q: What DP courses did you like taking and why?

A: In my DP experience I’ ve found that physics and chemistry work very well together. Physics has helped me do chemistry because some units kind of overlap and the exam papers have the exact same format. Math HL can help with physics because of calculus, which is taught earlier on (compared to Math SL)

A: If you aren ’t science inclined at all, one option would be taking Biology SL and then a class like Visual Art, Theatre, or (insert many other options here) instead of a second science. I personally take art and it’ s one of my favourite classes. In grade 12 you have total artistic freedom over what medium you use and what you make your art about! It’ s a really relaxing class to take because it’ s a nice change of pace from the lectures and tests in the other classes.

A: I’ m taking History HL and I love it! It’ s a difficult class so know that you will have to put a lot of work into it but you learn about a lot of really important events and periods in a lot of depth. I feel like it has made me a more well rounded and knowledgeable person with better critical thinking skills and I find the content really interesting.

Q: Is it hard to write the personal project Q: I get really busy after school. How do I

report? get all of my home learning done?

A: Since I picked something I’ m really A: One thing you can do is to break up your passionate about (I have certain restricted homework into more manageable time chunks. interests and I can fixate on them for What I like to do is, instead of sitting at one probably many hours at a time) it was quite assignment for hours, I do 15-20 minutes of easy for me and also quite fun. The report focused work before moving on to the next was also kinda fun to write. Other people did task. It allows me to cram more work into one things they found really stressful though, so if night, helps me remain focused (because you ’ re you think you might struggle finding not sitting for hours while your brain falls out motivation to write I would PICK your ears) and saves a lot of time. This is SOMETHING YOU’RE TRULY PASSIONATE especially effective if you space things out over ABOUT! I applied this same rule to the several days (so instead of doing an entire extended essay and I had pretty much no essay in one night, you do a few minutes of it stress at all while everyone else was going every day until the due date). This way you can “ uggggghhhhhhhhh EEE EEEEEE is soooo get a little bit done even on busy nights. stressssfulll………… ” and I was like heheheh… Q: Studying tips for the DP? How hard is it? How much homework do you have? How do you organize your time? A: The most difficult part for me balancing my school work with my general life. I think it’ s important that you have a medium between the two, so that you don ’t feel overwhelmed. For me it’ s been essential to try to accomplish a couple of things as soon as I get home from school, and I try my best to do this even when it might be more difficult. This way I can take a break before dinner, maybe even have some down time just for myself, so that I don ’t feel stressed out for the rest of the week. For me, I usually do an average of 2-3 hours of homework per night, and on the weekend I would probably say an average of 4-5 hours per day, but of course this varies based on what courses you take and how you work.