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Switching from HL Art to HL Theatre


Victoria Sandico

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Hello!

I'm about more than halfway through my first year of IB (Grade 11), and I'm thinking about switching from HL Art to HL Theatre. Is this something that every IB school allows? I've heard of two other people switching from HL Art to another HL course, but these were instances from two schools in different countries. I understand that a transition at this point during the year will definitely have its consequences, but I really feel that I made a HUGE mistake choosing to pursue Art as one of my HL courses. For starters, I took Theatre for two years before starting the IB, and had no legitimate experience with the Visual Arts besides painting, drawing, and sculpting on my own. I thought that the experiences I had doing Art on my own would be enough to prepare me for the work required in IB Art, but it seems that despite spending the most amount of time on this subject that I am still not used to the way the course is taught like my peers are. My subjects so far are HL Art, HL Film, HL Literature, Studies Math (pls don't judge me), SL French, and ESS. I am doing fairly well in all my other courses, that I highly doubt transitioning from Art to Theatre may lead to me falling behind in other subjects if there's a lot of course material I'll have to catch up on. I think a huge reason why I feel this way was that I chose to take Art for all the wrong reasons. Prior to taking the course, I already had in mind its reputation of being time-consuming, so it's not entirely the workload that I am unsatisfied with. I chose it for the stupid reason that everyone, from my closest friends to even my parents wanted me to take the course, but I don't think they realize my lack of experience with the arts from an academic lens, thus they must have equated me doing art on my own to me being able to do art in an academic/school environment. 

What do you guys think? 

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Hi there,

I take HL Art but I've been doing it for years with the same teacher/teaching style, so I understand why it might be a shock or too difficult. It depends on what you want to pursue and which universities/courses you'd like to take in the future. Honestly, half my art class had not had any experience being taught in the IB style and they started in quite a tough position however they really improved and now they're finding it fine. 

If switching is really what you want to do though, it's possible, especially for the Arts as the start of the IB is somewhat easy and laid-back. Have a talk with your parents and your IB coordinator. Optionally, you can also speak to your art teacher just to get that one extra - but important - opinion. Explain why you feel like you'd be happier and more successful in Theatre and ask your coordinator whether it would be possible to make the switch. At this point, I don't see why they wouldn't let you change. 

Of course, you'll need to catch up on any work/learning you may have missed in these past months, but it shouldn't be too bad.

I hope I helped a bit, wishing you the best of luck :)

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  • 1 month later...

Hey Victoria, I wish I could have responded to this earlier, my apologies for that.

Fortunately for you though, you can still, in my opinion, change from IB Art to IB Theatre. 

I come from different schools where they all offered IB and it is not rare to see people change their SL classes as late as their third semester in the IB (Senior year, First Semester), which I have also done and it turned out to be a great decision. And for Hl classes, I have seen people do one year in a Science Hl class and decide that they did not like it anymore and decided to take an Fine Arts Hl like Art Hl or Theatre Hl. So, time wise, you should still be in the safe boundaries where you can change Hls and catch up with that class. Also, your coordinator (depending on your school) should always focus on what the students think is better for themselves, thus making it likely that he or she will allow you to change and offer possible ways to catch up (such as making you do an assignment that the new class you would be taking would have already finished so you can be all caught up when talking about IB assessments).

However, in my own opinion, I think that the Theatre Hl class is a class that can vary enormously from teacher to teacher since the IB only asks for four formal assignments throughout the two years. So I would suggest that, if you haven't done it yet, talk to your friends that are taking the class (or to the teacher directly) and ask them about how far ahead they are in the syllabus, how much work does the teacher ask for, and most importantly, how much are they are enjoying themselves. 

The more convincing the answers are, the more you should try and change class. 

Again, this is completely different from teacher to teacher since Theatre Hl is a class that has a very small syllabus, but I know that Art Hl asks for an overwhelming amount of art and creation, which is completely the opposite as my Theatre Hl class. So much that if you were at my school, you would not have missed any IB assignments in Theatre Hl if you were to join at the beginning of your senior year. This is because the first year we had fun creating and acting pieces for the school and the outside community. 

My last advice, if you want to compare the loadwork between Art Hl and Theatre Hl, then you should look into what the assignments for this class are.

 

To give you a little guidance, this is broadly what the IB asks from Theatre Hl students:

Theater Research Presentation (15 min video)

Collaborative Project (class performance + 15 page essay

Solo Theatre Performance (4 to 8 min performance individually + 3000 word essay)

Director's notebook (20 page essay)

 

Hope it helped!

 

 

 

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