ISN Nice is renowned in the area as a leading international school due to our graduates’ excellent exam results and university placement record.  Through a holistic approach, ISN prides itself on ensuring that each student is accompanied on his or her educational journey and will reach his or her individual academic goals.

ISN's vision is to prepare today’s learners to confidently embrace challenges as adaptable, empathetic global citizens who will be active contributors for a more sustainable world.

We contacted two of our 2021/2022 graduates to hear how their transition from ISN Nice to University went. Their responses are below:

Hi everyone! My name is Evrard Dujardin, I graduated from the International School of Nice (ISN) this year and am currently studying Medicine at “Humanitas University” in Milan, Italy. 

I have officially survived my first few months of medical school and I must admit that it has gone much better than I could have hoped for. When I started university, I was expecting to face long and boring hours of work, however, I’ve been surprised by the amount of free time and fun I’ve been able to procure for myself. Thanks to the years I’ve spent studying the International Baccalaureat, I definitely feel like I’ve learnt how to efficiently manage my time and get on top of things and it has definitely been visible here in Milan. Many other students in my university who haven’t had to persevere through the demanding IB curriculum are struggling to keep up with the fast pace of medical school while myself and other IB students have all managed to hit the ground running. Let’s hope it keeps going this way for us!

Ever since I arrived in Milan, I’ve been most excited about living independently and managing my own life. I now freely get to decide when I go out, what time I come home, and plenty of other things we’ve all wished to do when we were kids. However, it’s also a huge change to have to start making your own life decisions and organising your days from start to end (what you’re going to cook, when you should do laundry, etc). I’ve honestly struggled with it at first since I am not used to this lifestyle, but thankfully, my high school years have taught me how to adapt myself to new surroundings and situations, and this is precisely what helped me overcome this difficulty. 

I truly hope the rest of my studies will run as smoothly as these first few months have, but when you’re studying medicine you can never be too sure…. To all the students reading this, just remember that even though the IB can become quite tough at times, it will benefit you in the future and I’ve had the chance to experience it firsthand! 

Hi everyone, my name is Emma Baumgartner. I graduated in June of 2022 and am currently studying Industrial Engineering at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in Germany.

The moment I started my course, I noticed the advantage I have from having attended an international school and having carried out the IB diploma programme. For instance, many of my modules, including maths and computer science, cover a lot of the content that I had learned during my IB years. This has allowed me to ease into the courses and focus on the language, as I am now learning in German. This is also something that I am thankful for, ISN allowed me to experiment with different learning techniques and find what works best for me, and I am now able to use this, no matter the language.

Furthermore, the IB process pushed me to have to manage many assignments and various types of work at the same time. I learned how to manage my time and focus on multiple assignments at a time without neglecting others. This style of work has helped me immensely at university as each course is different and requires a different way of learning. For instance, my economics course is much more content heavy than maths, where I need to carry out many exercises in order to master the content. This also helped me develop a work ethic, specifically for independent learning.

University is a much more self-taught learning environment, where you often have to rely on yourself and your self-motivation to move forward. It is a lot of work, but I arrived prepared and with the right learning tools to learn productively and efficiently, especially with exam season right around the corner.

Furthermore, ISN Nice has also helped me in a social way. Through many group projects and public speaking activities, I have gained a lot of confidence in myself, allowing me to not be shy when communicating and expressing myself. I integrated very easily, meeting new people and making friends quite fast. Knowing people made things easier and more enjoyable once the course started, as I adapted more easily to the life of a university student. From the beginning, I felt very comfortable in my learning environment, whether it be academically or socially, allowing me to really enjoy this next step of my life.