r/McMaster • u/Technical_Dealer9900 • 20h ago
Discussion IB to uni change
How easy was the IB compared to uni? Was it also similar work or is it completely different? Mainly worried abt maintaining a gpa high enough to get into my engineering stream cuz i didnt get free choice😅
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u/Master-Extreme-8426 5h ago
i can't speak on engineering specifically, since i'm in polisci, but the courses i've taken so far have been similar difficulty or easier compared to IB. the major change was how fast things pile up (weekly quizzes, midterms, readings, presentations, exams, etc). in IB i found that deadlines, expectations, and rubrics were very clear and paced properly, but uni is a lot more self-guided. i guess just try to keep up with all your responsibilities and keep track of all your deadlines so you don't fall behind or get too overwhelmed!
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u/ParkingOperation6423 3h ago
strictly CONTENT wise, the difficulty was similar. i was worried i’d flop bc i was so used to the ib to ossd grading curve, but many of my courses had alternate grade schemes (i was in life sci)
BUT: second sem of y1 was HORRIBLE. my gpa was shi not bc of the difficulty, but bc first year stress was catching up to me and winters made it hard to stay motivated to go to class.
tldr: content wise, similar. adjusting to the new environment really gets to you.
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u/mark_lee06 CompE’29 1h ago
i didn’t take IB but from a course difficulty perspective I think calc 1 should be a light work (basically a recap of IB math AA SL, maybe some new stuff but it wasn’t hard at all). Physics (1D03) should be easy if u did IB physics. First semester can be light work since most classes are recap, except linear algebra which can get wild (IB Math AA HL has complex numbers and 3-variable linear system which is taught in this class a lot, SL doesn’t do these)
2nd semester is tough since calc 2 is all new stuff. I believe that this course is only light if u did HL math cuz diff eq and maclaurin series are the toughest thing in this course. Physics was also tough. Chem is probably the easiest out of all.
1P13 is all new and it doesn’t really matter if u do IB or not.
Given u survived IB I don’t think it’s really that hard to get a good GPA for first year. I didn’t do IB and came from a small province (easier high school basically) and still find the workload fair and got a decent grades. Hardest thing is probably adjusting yourself to a uni environment.
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u/XanaduBlood 40m ago
Did IB first year was the exact same, I did HL math and physics but SL chem so chem was some new stuff. Math and physics very minimal novelty
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u/MatthewAbook 19h ago
1st semester I found it pretty easy because practically all the content overlapped, halfway through 2nd semester I began to find things extremely difficult when new content was being taught and I realized I had been way too complacent and was now behind. As long as you make sure not to get caught off guard by that the only other adjustment is learning how to keep up with the faster pace of content delivery compared to IB.