As a college freshman, in my first fall semester, one of my responsibilities aside from copious homework and studying is deciding what I want to major in and planning out my schedule for the semesters and semesters to come. This is an exciting but tedious process that requires me to understand that although there are classes that I need to take to fulfill general requirements for graduation and all that jazz, there’s really enough room for me to take classes that I want. Undergrad in college is really, for a lot of us, our last opportunity to branch out our education because once in grad school (for me at least hopefully) it’s all hitting the ground running.
But in terms of high school, picking classes is really more about seeing where we fit and figuring out what we like, don’t like, are good at, not good at, etc. and in the end it’s really about building valuable knowledge to carry into higher education. But what ends up happening is that the kids who were typically smarter usually filled their schedule with all AP classes and the kids who were not as smart took less and even none. Now there are probably really smart students who never took an AP class but what I said previously is a very broad generalization which could, for the most part, be true for most high schools today and what I’m asking is, why? The idea of the “GPA” really brainwashes a lot of students so the idea of taking a lot of AP classes to boost that GPA is baffling to me especially since students will leave learning nothing and not getting the college credit (which I am very guilty of). But now that I’m in college and I look back at all those classes I’ve taken and figured out I learned absolutely nothing I think to myself if it was really worth it. I look back at my class schedule in high school I wonder why I ever took the classes I had and why I decided not to take other classes instead. I continued to take more difficult classes I thought I could do it when I really couldn’t. So now I’ll look back at high school and look at the classes I should’ve taken and should’ve not taken.
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I should have NOT taken Engineering
It seems that the more I talk to my friends in college, Project Lead The Way (PLTW) has made its way into the doors of high schools everywhere and everyone has went through the “I want to be an engineer when I grow up” phase. My first year of PLTW consisted of notebook entries, computer work, and one project that encapsulated the majority of the entire school year. Although I could say that the class has given me a better idea of how engineers think and has given me a lot of access to explore that field through plenty of field trips, I could honestly say that the reason I stuck with engineering is because of the honors credit and just the pure novelty of me being able to say “Look at me. I’m taking a class just about engineering”. Now in high school math, was definitely not my strong suit which would subsequently make physics not the greatest science credit class I’ve taken so when I decided to take my second year of engineering, where the majority of it was physics applied problems and thinking, I regret taking the class just for a credit and would have much prefered to have added more years of learning a foreign language.
I should HAVE taken more Spanish
Speaking of foreign language, the reason why I wasn’t able to take more of Spanish is because I decided to use up my only two sophomore year electives for taking a second year of Computers and my first year of engineering. This meant that I was subject to only being able to take the minimum of two years in a foreign language for graduation and this was truly a shame because I, for the most part, loved this class. Although my math and science intensive schedule has made me forget a good deal of what I learned in class, it’s pretty cool how I can still look at a sentence in Spanish and figure out what they’re saying. And being an American-born minority having nearly no idea of how to speak my parents’ native tongue, this was all a revelation to me. The class exercised my ability to memorize information and apply it in speech. And I never got a greater sense of accomplishment than when I was able to take all the vocabulary I learned and turn into a sentence I can communicate to a different culture. The fact that I had to take the second level of Spanish my senior year was a shame because after having taken that class, I would be very confident taking AP Spanish and getting college credit for it.
I should have NOT taken AP English Language
For me, the way people get better at writing is when they are given a platform to write what they want (why I joined Odyssey). But if people were only told to write what they want, this freedom will lead to a lot of bad writing without proper exigency or a proper defense of what’s being brought up. And if that’s the case AP Lang will help anyone with “badly structured” or “ineffective” writing. I personally didn’t like the concept of AP Lang with students having to follow a specific rubric and having to base their writing off of that. Now people will disagree with me here but personally having taken English classes my senior year where my writing was more concerned about whether or not I had a good idea and somewhere in my paper I defend it in a proper manner, I will definitely rebel against a class that does the complete opposite. This is not to say I performed badly in the class or that the class taught me nothing. AP Lang has given me a more in-depth introduction towards reading more difficult texts and forcing me to transpose that reading into something I put in my essays (which is what college is all about). But having such rigid and structured English classes prior to AP Lang, I think I was just better off taking a lower level English course that allowed to write what I want while getting advice on how it should be fixed at the same time that way I could be in an environment where I was incentivized to write how and what I want while also doing it in a somewhat professional manner.
I should HAVE taken Trigonometry
As I have said before, math is not my strong suit and part of the reason is because I skipped taking a year of just trig. Yes I have definitely learned what trig identities are but I learned all of this taking pre-calculus my sophomore year which was definitely the class to take to say the least. If there was anything I learned in high school it would be this: do not underestimate math because if it’s easy at first, it will be harder later; it will be much harder to say the least. Math is a subject that requires a different level and different method of thinking to be successful. Algebra and geometry did a good job in introducing the level of thinking to be expected but if I took trigonometry, I could’ve built more of the math logic and been exposed to more math word problems (and in Calculus, knowing what a word problem is asking from you is almost half the battle). In the end, math after my sophomore year of high school was just a huge wash that I could’ve fixed if I decided to take another year to learn the basics.
The moral of the story is, know where you stand and make smart decisions on where to go next. It’s fine to branch out and explore, but if it’s for the sole purpose of having a better reputation at your school or having a higher GPA, there needs to be some serious time to reflect on what’s being decided. A lot of the AP classes I chose was for the reasons I mentioned before and in college what really matters is knowledge and what you actually retained as a result of being in school because any other reason would be rendered futile if you didn’t learn anything. But nevertheless, having taken the wrong classes in high school made me realize what mistakes I’m not going to repeat and some things I need to catch up on knowing. And it’s important to know that having the opportunity to select the classes that will shape your academic career is a privilege and is something that cannot be wasted. It’s a tool to understand and change yourself and any opportunity to this should be capitalized at by all means.
