This upcoming week on Thursday, April 21 the IB MYP Personal Project Completion Ceremony will be held. This ceremony will recognize the entire IB sophomore class of 2024 for all their hard work in accomplishing the IB Personal Project that they started at the beginning of the school year.

“It’s important to recognize people’s hard work and celebrate when something is done and finished. Students spent numerous months doing this and it’s important to give credit where credit is due,” IB and MYP coordinator Fitzgerald said. 

The IB Middle Years Program (MYP) curriculum requires incoming sophomores to complete what’s called the personal project. Sophomores then have the choice to pick anything they would like to complete in the next following months. During this whole process, students meet with supervisors, coordinators, and mentors to be guided along the way in achieving the outcome of their project.

“For my personal project, I created a sustainable workout program that fits into the lives of busy people. I began talking with my friends and supervisor about how I should implement this [workout program] as well as their experience with exercise,” Mezi Ahmed (10) said.

At the beginning of the school year, sophomores were assigned to a supervisor, an adult in the building that could advise them to the best of their ability in dealing with the project. Along with a supervisor, IB senior mentors were assigned to a group of sophomores that they could mentor in the following year and essentially relive the year they were in the exact same shoes.

However, IB senior mentors had a bit of a detour two years ago when COVID-19 officially took over.

“This is supposed to be a big mark in your IB career so for us [IB senior mentors] not having it in person was kind of upsetting,” Hannah Kim (12) said.

The 2022 IB MYP Personal Project Completion Ceremony would be the first time in three years the IB program would be holding it in person. IB sophomores, parents, mentors, and coordinators would all be invited to praise the difficult process sophomores had to endure to complete the personal project.

From here on out, future IB MYP sophomore classes would be undergoing the same practice in the following years. Towards the end of an IB MYP student’s freshman year, they would then be introduced to the personal project and have a rough idea of what they would be achieving the next year.

“Remember that personal project means that it’s of personal interest to you. Take something that you’re already interested in and build on that because then it’s something that you’re already involved in and you’re not having to feel like you’re taking on more,” Fitzgerald said.

The IB MYP Personal Project is not only a learning experience for an IB student but a personal concept that could only be executed by the student choosing to do so. The unique final product brought about by students themselves is a prize for the dedication and hard work they were put through.