hey! I am finishing up my first year of ESS and I have really enjoyed it! It is kinda a mix pf biology, a little bit of chemistry and social sciences. For every topic that we study (soil, water, air pollution, climate change, biodiversity etc) we first learn the techincalities of the subject and we always finish with a “how do we humans mess this up and how do we fix it” section as my teacher likes to call it. Since ESS is very much based on social sciences and human impact on ecosystems there is not a ton of lab work but there is a required minimum of about 10 I believe. If you don’t like to write lab reports, ESS would be the class that has the lwast amount. Because it is more humanities based so often considered to be easier than other sciences. I did not really have hard time with ESS mainly because I am really interested in the subject but I know many of my classmates struggled (they took it as an ‘easy’ class without any interest and found it hard to get the motivation to work and study so many of them failed actually).

beware that ESS is A LOT of memorization, as much as Bio SL. it is usually taken for granted but you need to know many nutrient cycles among others, case studies, mitigation techniques and much much more. Overall I have really enjoyed my first year of ESS. My teacher is literally amazing and living in Brussels I have had many chances outside of school to engage myself in activities that revolved around the course (I went to the EU parliament to follow a hearing on the 2050 climate strategies and all the climate marches where happening here). Just as with any other course I would recommend that you already have an interest in the topics (look up the syllabuses online!) that you will be studying otherwise it will be harder, but overall if you put in the effort and have a genuine interest for solving current environmental issues on this planet, ESS is the class for you!

@1mensinkm thank you so much that was really helpful :)

@1mensinkm hey any chance you’re going to the SMILE in Switzerland this summer?

nope sorry