A combination of intense researching, critical thinking, source citing and strong writing can only mean one thing, especially for seniors in the IB program.

When taking the diploma route of the IB program, students are required to write an extended essay. It is a 4,000 word research essay that covers a school related topic. All of the work is done outside of school.

“It’s a really stressful process, especially if you don’t manage your time well which I’ve had struggles with this year,” senior Mathilde Le Tacon said. “You work on it on your own time during senior year. You don’t get time to do anything in class. It’s completely outside of school and on your own time.”

Senior Trey Roberts stated that the main thing the EE has taught him about his writing skills is how to organize many ideas into one steady paper.

“On a 1500 word essay you can just slop your ideas down and there’s no way it wouldn’t make sense because it’s such a confined space, but with 4,000 words, you really have to learn how to keep your ideas flowing from beginning to the end,” senior Trey Roberts said. “You can’t just throw things down and be like ‘oh I’m sure this is fine,’ because there’s so many different ideas you have to talk about. So definitely organization.”

The seniors have chosen a wide variety of topics ranging from Mary Tudor to imaginary numbers. They can choose their topics from any school subject that is taught in IB.

“I think the one thing the EE has helped me with is researching skills and how to find better or more appropriate sources,” senior Adhithya Balaji said. “I like reading about math a lot, but most of the sources I read them from probably aren’t that reliable like blogs and stuff. This got me reading actual books published by mathematicians.”

Students have from the end of their junior year to January 11th of their senior year to choose their topic, do their research and finish their paper.

“Writing the EE has really taught me, first of all time management, because I’m use to just writing papers in one sitting,” senior Alexa Urrea said. “The EE is definitely not a paper you can write in just one night. Really how to be more independent with school work because we get very little help with the actual writing of this, we do get a few pointer, but overall it’s your own work. You really learn how to use critical thinking a lot harder.”