The first year abroad: what actually goes wrong, and what to do about it

Students who have done the IB usually cope with the workload; what catches them out is everything around it. The failures are predictable, which means most of them are preventable.

The first fortnight: admin that has deadlines

1. 1Register with the university and with the local authorities if the country requires it. Several countries fine students who register late.
2. 2Open a local bank account. International cards work until the day a landlord or a health service needs a local account.
3. 3Register with a doctor before you are ill, not after.
4. 4Find out how your visa limits work — hours you may work, whether you may leave the country mid-term, what happens if you interrupt your studies.

Month three

The novelty has worn off, the first results have come back, everyone else looks like they have found their people, and it is dark at four in the afternoon. This is the most common point for a student to conclude they chose wrong. Almost nobody who feels it in November still feels it in March. Knowing the dip is scheduled is most of the defence against it.

Academic differences that surprise IB students

• Nobody checks whether you attended or did the reading. The structure that carried you through school is gone, and replacing it is a first-term task.
• Marks are lower and mean something different. A first-class mark in the UK often starts around seventy per cent, which reads as a disaster to someone trained on IB percentages.
• Plagiarism rules are stricter and enforced by software. Referencing conventions differ between countries; learn the local one in the first week.