01 - Copenhagen International School

Shandana Mufti, Class of 2011
A Student’s View of the Diploma
Programme
Somewhere between June and August of this, I
stopped being an MYP student and became a DP
(Diploma Programme) student. Personal Project
would be replaced with Extended Essay (apparently,
the IB is a big fan of alliteration), and tutorials
were now free periods.
One of the first things done by returning students
like myself the night before the new school year was
to access our schedules and compare the times at
which we and our friends started, resulting in several
proclamations of hate upon the discovery that the
day you start at 8 am, your friend does not have to
come in until 11 am.
This “hate” was forgotten the first day back at school.
We all stood outside the Atrium, clustered in groups
of friends while curiously eyeing the new people. To
clarify, there were two categories of new students.
There were the Rygaards people, who had transferred
from Rygaards to CIS. Then there were the new-new
people, the ones who had just moved to Denmark or
who had no previous contact with each other. Today,
we’ve all settled into various groups of friends featuring
a mix of people from the old, the Rygaards-new,
and the new-new.
The most daunting aspect of the DP is the independence.
If you can’t pull yourself together and work,
chances are that you’re not going to be wearing a hat
with a tassel after two years. However, the independence
is also one of the best things about the DP. We’re
not told what to do every step of the way; as long as
we get there (without plagiarism), that’s what counts.
Teachers have finally backed off and given us some
breathing space, which is startling after the constant
reminders of assignments throughout the MYP.
Nothing could have prepared us for the workload
that would be thrust upon us from the week we retuned
from the DP Retreat onwards. Tests, quizzes,
presentations, essays, commentaries; by the end of
the year, I expect we’ll all have mastered and perfected
the art of surviving all-nighters, then rushing
to school for an 8 o’clock lesson and arriving with just
seconds to spare.
A lot has happened since August this year. We’ve
been introduced to Theory of Knowledge, a class we
have yet to understand. By January 2010, two people
will have left our grade. We’ve gotten to know the
people with whom we’ll be graduating in less than
two years. Most importantly, we’ve made it this far
without burning out, so we’re quite unstoppable at
this point – as long as none of us build up immunity
to caffeine. In the words of Queen, “We Are The
Champions” – so far.