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On March 22, our G12 students had an informal, intimate video call with Bella from her dorm room and residence hall, through which she shared lots of her first hand, real life experience. The seniors found it invaluable, as the reality was brought to life through their down to earth venue.
Bellow, we share with you some highlights of their meeting.
About life at UBC
Bella is aiming at majoring in Psychology with a minor in Commerce or Economies. She shared how she appreciates the approach of having her first two years to meet prerequisite courses and explore her interests experientially before committing to the faculty of Psychology.
She found out that having a broad range of recreational, social and cultural activities and clubs is important to her enrichment, growth, and success as a student, among which her favorites are animation club, volleyball intramural sports, and mahjong. She found it ironic that she has taken such an interest in a game that she grew up with as part of her culture, but did not actually learn and play until she went off to a Western college.
Bella said that at university, one needs to be proactive and independent in getting involved and making friends. Thanks to the wide-range of activities and her being outgoing, both in class and among the community, she made new friends who share the same passions as her.
About IB and university courses
Some students were curious about how difficult college course can be – after all IB DP is difficult enough for them. Bella said both courses are difficult, but IB is so helpful to college courses in the way that:
- IB DP is about the same level of the first-year course at university.
- IB trains your time management skills so you adapt to college better.
- The most important thing is that DP scores do count as college credit, which means you can save you time and money.
About deciding which university to go to
As mentioned above, Bella received several offers from top universities. She made her final decision with the following considerations:
- The ranking of the school was important, of course, but she did not completely rely on it.
- The location of the city was a major determination. For example, as Bella likes warm weather along with having the seasons, so she decided that Vancouver is her choice.
- She advised students to seriously consider the class sizes. Take UBC for example, there might be 400 students in one class, so, you need to know whether you see this as overwhelming, or as an opportunity to interact with people.
We can say this, that they got more out of an informal down to earth REAL conversation than formal pitches from alums. They felt honesty and excitement. And they especially liked the last ten minutes – when teachers left the room and they had an opportunity to just talk real with Bella. That’s where they asked questions they would normally would have fell shy in asking; that’s when youth specific anxieties were relieved; and that’s when more laughter, joy, and confidence in that “we will be alright” was realized.
BIS is proud to offer such authentic and progressive opportunities for our students, the future contributors and leaders of our global community.
A special thank you to our Bella. Jia You!
College Talks and Cookies by BIS College Counseling Department
With the support of our College Counseling team, our students have various kinds of opportunities to access the educational resources related to higher education. Recently, in order to increase awareness among our students of specific factors involved in applying to multiple destinations around the world, the College Counseling Department runs weekly college talks and cookies series over lunch period as an additional feature to our counseling program in the schedule.
Each session is led by one of our school counselors. Topics have included “Best Kept Secrets – Universities you have never heard of but excel in many ways”; “How to go to college and get out with a job you love and debt free”; “Everything you ever wanted to know about going to school in Australia”; “Understand the rivalry between The Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, and how does it apply to college applications”.
Students are invited to attend as many lunchtime workshops as possible, and see this as an opportunity of exploring, discussing future possibilities, having cookies and a lot of fun.
