[Computer Science] - Self taught subject ?

[Augustin]

Hi guys !

I am new on the forum so let me first present myself.  My name is Augustin but you can call me gus. I am french and I am actually in my very first year of IBDP.
I decided to take the following subjects for the IB: • French A (SL) • English B (HL) • Economics (HL) • Physics (HL) • Maths (HL) • Chemistry (SL) •

 

The thing is that I would love to take Computer Science in addition to all my current subjects.
Therefore my question is the following:

" Is it possible to self-teach myself this subject ? "

 

I guess the answer is "depends your school"
So I have asked my IB coordinator but apparently my school doesn't offer Computer Science or at least doesn't teach it. My coordinator also confirmed it was impossible to self-teach subjects other than Group 1 Languages.
However I really, really, really, really * ∞ want to do this course, so do you guys know if there are any ways to take the exam for this subject ? I have learned Computer Science since my 10 years old so I would extremely love to pass the exam no matter the price.

 

Thank you very much for all your answers, I really appreciate ^-^
Also good luck to all grade 12 students for their final year  You're all gonna do great !

Edited September 9, 2017 by Augustin
Grammar

[Augustin]

Please, I'll really need an answer :/

Thank you.! :c

[fromsomewhere2k17]

Hey Gus! About your taking computer science as an IB subject, I don't think that it is possible for you to officially take CS judging from the info u gave because i) Your school doesn't offer the course. I don't know whether if you are allowed to self-study any subject except the languages, but since your coordinator has said it, then it must be true since he/she obviously knows more about the details more than me, and ii) You already have 2 subjects from the science group (Phys. & Chem), and CS falls into the same category as those two subjects so even if your school did offer the CS course, you would have had to drop either one.

However, there could be one way to take CS officially. I'd suggest you to look up Pamoja IB and see if they offer Computer Science online. If they do, then you are definitely in luck. You could then discuss learning IB CS online on Pamoja with your coordinator and if all goes well, you would then need to drop either Chem or Phys and take CS in its stead. But I haven't checked the Pamoja website in a long time and have no idea if they offer CS or not. Besides, even if you cannot enroll into IB CS, you can still self-study the subject at your own pace and leisure. I have a friend who has been self-teaching himself coding for four years through online courses. Google it up and you will surely find a lot of things online.

Hope this helps. 

Edited October 27, 2017 by fromsomewhere2k17

[Nomenclature]

If you end up not being able to take it, just continue to teach yourself about computer science outside of school. You can learn so much from working on a personal project, in addition to having something to add to your portfolio. A personal project is essentially all the CS IA is. And that way you can choose what you decide to focus on.

The rest of the curriculum we covered in CS for SL outside of OOP was basic stuff like unsigned binary numbers, types of memory, extremely basic logic gates, basic computer parts and technologies.