r/IBO•
mia_nureaib45

Help! IBDP1 student here

Group 1

Currently I am in my first year of the IB program, I have just completed term 1 and next term I have to choose my high levels. I do plan on pursing the pathway of medicine so I was told it was recommended to take sciences as HL's. Currently I have decided on 2/3, most likely I will take chemistry and biology as HL subjects, now I'm just torn between either choosing English or psychology as my last HL subject.

I should probably mention that I am not the best at writing essays from the top of my head but I love analysing and reading books. The thought of doing 2 seperate essays for an english paper (if I take HL) does not seem all that interesting to me, or something I can do well in. I do know that psychology is more of a structured subject while English is more on the subjective side, but I am also aware of the number of case studies that need to be memorised for psychology. Although they did recently change the structure of the course for psychology I am not sure if this is still relevant. I'm not too sure if memorising will necessarily be an issue for me, but given the two sciences I want to take HL in, I'm not sure if this combination is the smartest decision given the workload I might find myself to be situated in.

I did hear that English is a little bit of a lighter subject, but the only thing stopping me is my abilities to do good in this subject. Preferably I do want to score 7's in my HL's so I do want the highest mark possible.

What would other people recommend me to do? I would love to hear about past experiences as well with English and Psychology as a HL.

Posted Mar 30, 2026, 6:23 AM UTC

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