Catherine Loza, Beijing World Youth Academy (BWYA)
What degrees do your students go on to choose?
Studying a modern foreign language at IB level basically makes you a more effective international citizen, so it can assist students in whatever university course they choose. Learning a language gives you insight into another culture, helping you develop intercultural understanding and cross international borders
with confidence. Our students
have gone on to university to study everything from physics to cooking, international relations to fashion.
What degrees would an IB in a modern language be useful for?
A modern foreign language is useful for any course that has
an international element, which
in today’s globalised world is practically everything except Star Trek studies. Any type of degree
in business administration would be immeasurably enhanced by an ability to use a foreign language.
Other possible fields include government agencies, travel, engineering, communications, education, international law, economics, public policy, publishing, advertising, entertainment, scientific research, and the service sector. Some academic disciplines
have also become
particularly global
in the last few
years, such as
law and politics.
Although
these subjects
also require
specialised
local knowledge,
the ability to
function across national boundaries is important.
What would you say to a student who feels they don’t need to learn another language in addition to English and Mandarin?
Unfortunately, it’s impossible to accurately predict the precise language we’re going to need in the future. There’s no reason why a student that enjoys learning foreign languages should not try to do
this at the IB level. The act of learning a language enables us to learn another in the future, as studies have shown that the more languages we know, the easier it is to learn another.
Doug Lewis, Canadian International School of Beijing (CISB)
What degrees would IB Art be beneficial for?
IB Art students can go on to do anything they want, from working
in creative fields such as industrial design, graphic design, fashion design or architecture, to doing anything else that requires creative thinking. Fine art teaches students a creativity that lends itself to other disciplines. This is definitely a skill that has to be learned.
Most successful people in business that we hear of are creative thinkers, and that was the key to their success. Steve Jobs painted
art and built his own machines at the beginning of Apple computers. He had an inborn need to make things that had no specific purpose, in the same way as Albert Einstein. All Einstein’s experiments were first done in his head. As a dreamer, he thought of things with no purpose
in mind; he didn’t want to solve problems, he simply wanted to challenge reality.
How does studying art help students develop skills
and add value to their lives?
In my opinion, it’s more
important to learn creative processes
than facts, because
facts change but creativity
expands. It develops strategies that allow people
to think in their own directions. The visual language is universal, unlike oral or written ones. Given new world dynamics, developing visual dialogues is perhaps even more important than verbal ones. The best thing about learning visual languages is that they’re transferable to anywhere and anything in the world.
Don Jepsen-Minyard,
Western Academy of Beijing
(WAB)
What degrees do your Film Studies students go on to choose?
There are currently 31 Grade 11 and 12
students enrolled in DP Film Studies. Around a third of DP Film students go on to study film.
The most commonly chosen degree programme is the Bachelor of Fine Arts, but some students want to enter the workforce sooner, so
they find certificate programmes in private institutions like the Vancouver Film School.
In what other ways does Film Studies help add value to students’ lives?
DP Film
Studies isn’t
just a course
in filmmaking.
True, about half
of the class time
is dedicated to the
skills and processes
of planning and making films, but those projects are also a means of learning about film theory, analysis and history – so it’s more an academic than a practical course.
While studying film and
making films, students also learn
to design and execute complex, creative projects. pleasant and unpleasant surprises emerge along the way, and every obstacle, from uncooperative weather to a stubborn camera operator, must be confronted. Many students end up discovering important qualities about themselves.
My favourite of these happy outcomes is when a shy person realises she has a gift for directing, and gets to be a leader for the first time. Here’s another example: last year, a group of students finished shooting a pretty complicated scene in our studio. As soon as they had the last shot in the bag, two of the students spontaneously jumped for joy. I can’t prove it, but such strong emotional responses to a learning experience suggest that something good – even essential – is happening. That may be the highest goal for my students: to experience the unique pleasure of creating something from nothing.
Jerry Grzegorzek,
Beijing World Youth
Academy (BWYA)
What degrees do your Business Management students choose?
Business management is probably the most popular IB subject, chosen by 40 percent of DP1 students at BWYA this year. These students
go on to the best universities in
the world, including Stanford, Yale and Oxford. While some choose to study business administration and general management at university, many others are chasing passions in niche specialisations such as hotel
management or arts management.
What degrees would Business Management be useful for?
Taking business management has
many advantages. First, it’s related
to society on local, national and international levels, as people
make money everywhere in the world. Students learn how
companies operate on a daily basis, and how managers make the best decisions. The IB Diploma also covers all business functions including marketing, human resources, finance and production. Second, studying business management gives students many choices on future jobs: they could be managers in multi-national companies or entrepreneurs, take over family businesses, pursue an academic career or teach. Fourth, business management teaches students to be extremely smart. Critical thinking skills help them to look at any problem from different perspectives as company owners, customers or competitors.
In what other ways does Business Management help add value to students’ lives?
Doing this course makes students want to start a company not only
to earn profits but to change the world. They have so many truly world-class ideas, such as delivering fresh vegetables directly from Chinese farmers to people’s homes, selling healthy homemade sandwiches to busy Korean teenagers, or teaching football to students from poor backgrounds.
