Studying for IB Biology HL

I guess you could say that I was highly uneducated about the whole "studying" concept. Don't get me wrong, it was a familiar term. Having heard kids whining about how many hours they had spent studying and that they had gotten not sleep, was something I was not sheltered from. I am, after all, in a school in which roughly 95+% of students do the full IB diploma; which is something not too common apparently.

Having been subjected to an environment with highly stressed teenagers, suffering from anxiety, insomnia and anger issues (especially directed to their teachers who, if you believed what you were told, were either highly incompetent or just lazy). 

Consequently, I had been assuming that the act of studying was simply a thing that people do, and thus something I had been doing but hadn't focused particularly much on. I used to think that studying consisted of sitting on your bed for hours on end, reading a textbook and highlighting the majority of the page in complete concentration. To be fair I hadn't really needed to study before starting the IB. I mean of course I spent a long time re-reading the course Textbooks and spending hours trying to comprehend the books I was assigned for english class; but all the while I had thought that this was merely a time consuming burden placed upon by my dyslexia. 

I'll admit that having dyslexia is one of the prime reasons I spend twice as much time working on something academic than your average student would. Nonetheless, I can now see that my motivation and dedication to my studies was not purely based on my anxiety of being exposed as "stupid" or "dumb". 

Now that I've covered the necessary pre-ramblings I find myself consistently starting my writing with, I can get to the point. IB BIOLOGY HL. Otherwise known as the class people take who need a science as a HL subject, but aren't exactly gifted in terms of mathematics or comprehending the various symbols of the periodic table. Needless to say, my class consisted (more about that later) of the students who needed to take the course but not necessarily wanted to.

I find it quite frustrating how IB Biology has such a bad reputation. It's the class chosen by all the "dumb" people, the "easy" class. To some extent we owe this lovely representation to the conceited pupils of the physics and chemistry classes. As for some odd reason, they believe that because their subject incorporates more numbers, they are for some reason or other working harder than we are. Since when does the amount of numbers present in the syllabus, equate to superiority in the natural sciences? I'm still fascinates by this idea that numbers are harder to decipher than letters, and thus deserve a far superior ranking in the world of academia. 

From very beginning of our academic careers, we are constantly reminded that math and sciences are difficult and require a highly ineffectually gifted individual to master. I call BS. I know plenty gifted mathematics and physics students who couldn't build a birdhouse or direct a film for the life of them. My passionate feminist friend once told me that this is due to the fact that men control the STEM fields, and in an attempt to make up for their "shortcomings" they belittling those who aren't interested or successful in anything regarding mathematics and numbers. Let that sink in. 

Let's revisited the actual purpose of this post, which is to show you guys what I do to study for Bio. Now before I start, quick disclaimer: I am in no way telling you that you will succeed if you do what I do. Seriously though, we are all different and unique so what works for you might not work for me and vice versa. 

I've just posted a new youtube video about how I study for Biology, in which I briefly demonstrate my daily "study" routine. The word study should be taken lightly, I honestly just use the word because I'm not aware of anything that could describe what it is I'm doing. 

So what exactly is it that I'm doing? you ask...well I'm about to get to that now. 

For anyone who isn't familiar with IB Biology HL, I'll let you in on a few basic facts about the course. 

1. The course material itself isn't too challenging to understand (in regards to the SL portion of the syllabus, once you get into the HL stuff shit gets real) 

2. Imagine you had a library filled with only science books, if you were to calculate the material for each course when looking at this hypothetical situation through the lens of the IB syllabi, roughly 75% of the books would be Bio books. Seriously though, the sheer amount of information is what makes the course so challenging.

3. Memorising is inevitable. Theres no way you can answer a "long answer question" without having made up some ridiculous story about cells and replication in order to be able to remember the process of mitosis.

For these reasons alone, I think you can already sense what my studying strategy would consist of.
The main studying methods I utilise are making my own flashcards, re-writing in class notes and making mind maps/summary information posters.
Flashcards
- I rarely go online and use quizlet sets of flashcards because sometimes they aren't too reliable.
That is why I choose to write my own flashcards, but most of the time I manage to compress a couple of different points all on one card.
Re-writing in class notes
- For those of you who are non-dyslexics, this would probably seem quite time consuming and unnecessary. However if you're like me and frantically try to catch up on copying down notes from both verbal and visual information flung at you by your teacher, you would understand why this is a very useful strategy.
Mind maps / summary information poster
- These are essentially what they sound like they are. Large blank sheets of A3, soon to bi filled with all of the information covered on a topic, condensed in a couple of bullet points per objective.

So yeah, thats the gist of it. If you guys want to see how this looks like, check out my youtube video!https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJCPEKC4XL0