Sponsored by Yew Chung International School of Beijing (YCIS Beijing) –YCIS Beijing is has a long history of academic achievement with five educational accreditations and a award from Cambridge International Examinations. YCIS Beijing is registered as a school for children of foreign nationals offering international education for students in kindergarten through to Year 13 and graduation to university. For more information, please email: enquiry@bj.ycef.com
On June 3rd, YCIS Beijing’s Class of 2015 graduated and will now move on to study at universities across the world. One graduate, Nathan Drisner from Canada, who will be studying Criminolgy at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver next year has shared his thoughts on his experience at YCIS Beijing and the his thoughts about the IB Diploma Programme.
I’m very excited about graduating from YCIS Beijing. While I’m going to miss my friends and teachers, along with Beijing but I’m really looking forward to this next phase in my life, going out on my own, and taking on new challenges.
I’ve been at YCIS Beijing for 6 years in total. It is a slightly smaller school in terms of size, and that’s what I love about it. While it’s not too small, meaning I have many different opportunities available for getting involved in a variety of activities, it really felt like a very close-knit community. I knew all of my Year 13 classmates fairly well, and we felt like a big family. The teachers are also very friendly and personal, and that’s what I really appreciated about going to an international school; teachers here aren’t afraid to be friends with us students, and that helped us to get involved in class, and to learn more about the world and be prepared for adulthood.
Taking the IB Diploma was great. It seems that a lot of other IB graduates say it is one of the hardest things they’ve ever faced, but that wasn’t what I experienced. Instead, I learned how to be balanced, and I found time for fun while also having enough time to focus on studies. Even though I did have many nights where I would have to work until 2 AM, I always knew that I deserved it, and no one was responsible for it but me. However, the times I did manage to finish work at a steady pace and get it done early, such as with my Extended Essay, it really paid off, and meant a lot less stress for me when deadlines approached.
I also appreciate how the IB programme gave me the option to choose subjects I was interested in such as Psychology and Global Politics (GP). Taking Global Politics was one of the best parts of these last two years at YCIS Beijing, and is quite literally an experience I could not have had at any other school in Beijing, as YCIS was one of the few schools in the world that was part of the GP pilot programme. Through GP, I not only got to learn about history, but I got to apply what I’ve learned about history to current events, and my understanding about the world, politically, economically, and socially grew more than I think it would have taking a normal history course. Some of my best memories are from GP class, whether that was cracking jokes about political leaders or helping run the Global Politics simulation.
I think my success at YCIS Beijing came from the caring environment at the school. I was not always the most focused of students, but my teachers cared enough about me to help me get on track and focus on my work. I was also given the space to just be myself, both from classmates and teachers, and that was a motivation to do better academically, as well as in my various Creativity Action Service (CAS) activities like volleyball, Student Council, and playing guitar.
My advice to other IB students is: Don’t let stress get the better of you. If all you think about is study, you only have the potential to do well academically. But if you balance everything out, and don’t take yourself too seriously, you can do well academically while also having time for fun, friendship, and relaxation. IB is just a course you’re taking, and not your entire life. Also, finish your work early so you don’t have to stress about it later, and that way you consistently have more time to enjoy your high school life.
To learn more about YCIS Beijing, please visit www.ycis-bj.com
Photos: YCIS
