The personal project is an assignment that all sophomores at Anne Arundel County public high schools must complete not only to take IB classes during their junior year of high school but to also graduate the 10th grade. The project involves multiple steps and starts during a student's freshman year of high school. It starts simple but escalates into a big hassle that takes up a lot of time. Many 10th graders are stressed out by this project, not only because they have to complete the project itself but also because they also have to write and present a culminating essay about it as well as balance their normal schoolwork on top of the project. This petition is to stop the project from being mandatory. I, the student making this petition, am a 10th grader at Old Mill High School, which is an IB world school, meaning that I have to do the personal project in order to move on to 11th grade in June. This project has taken a huge chunk out of students' schedules, and, while we are getting help, it's not enough to help us weather the project. It is not fair to us 10th graders to have to do this project, especially as some of us take AP classes as well, which adds on even more stress. Multiple students have come out in opposition to this project, saying that it is a waste of time and energy. We don't get any recognition for this project, and it is not fair for us sophomores to be forced to complete it, let alone the 10th graders who did not sign up for the IB program and were forced into it because the their home high school happened to be an IB school. I myself did not sign up for the IB program because Old Mill is my home high school, and this is something I had no hand in choosing, as well as other students, and its adding stress for those students, many of whom are not particularly academically inclined and who have no desire to partake in any accelerated program orextra work and this is something that many other school divisions don't do.  This project is essentially like working overtime but being paid nothing for the extra effort. Please sign to stop the Personal Project from being required in schools so students are not forced to work on an overwhelming, anxiety-inducing assignment just to pass 10th grade. Thank you.