With the first semester of the 2024-2025 school year coming to a close, course selection for the following year is right around the corner. Picking a good class is essential for students, since the classes that they choose will not only be their classes for the year, but will be important for those applying to college and their future. Some qualities students look for in a class are a good teacher, an enjoyable class, and an engaging environment.
“I think it relies on the teacher to make it an engaging class. The content helps too, if you’re interested in that, but mainly the teacher,” junior Katelyn Popp said.
A good teacher enables students to understand the class, ask for help when they need it, and get the correct grades back. Without these qualities, it becomes harder to pass the class, making it all the more important to be selective when it comes to courses. In addition to teachers, the content of the class is equally important.
“There have definitely been classes I didn’t enjoy as much as I should because of the teacher. Also, the content – if it’s something you’re not passionate about, and it’s a harder class, you’ll probably have a more difficult time,” junior Sofia Hoag said.
Aside from teachers and class content, the natural progression of courses can be the motivation needed to choose a certain class. Additionally, some chords given at graduation require a certain set of courses to be completed, as exemplified by the STEM chord. Post-graduation plans can have an effect as well.
“I take into consideration what is the next level of class I’m currently taking, like going from AP precalculus to AP BC calculus. Along with this, I consider personal preference. I have a big interest in law, so I signed up for Crime and Justice for my first-semester elective. I thought it was a fun class, the material is engaging and the teacher is great,” Hoag said.
The school has a wide variety of courses to choose from, which range from Crime and Justice to Nutritional Sciences. Many of these classes, specifically the electives, can tend to fly under the radar, causing them to be undiscoverable to students. It is encouraged that students pay attention to every class offered, and if they find an elective they are interested in, spread the word so that it gets enough demand for the school to be able to run the class.
“I’ll just say I think it’s really important students look through the entire course selection when they’re entering in their [courses] because we only run the courses if there’s enough students that sign up for it. For those electives some students have an interest in, they should really push and get the word out to others to sign up so we can actually run the course,” counselor Lauran Pinto said.
Students won’t have to stress about handling this process entirely on their own, as counselors will take the time to meet individually with each student once they have begun to fill out their course requests.
“Starting Feb. 10, that’s when the counselors will start pulling out every single student and meet with them to make sure what they’ve signed up for is exactly what they need for graduation requirements, to keep them on track,” Pinto said.
The kinds of classes that students are placed in have a tendency to evolve over the course of their high school career. For example, it is common to see students have a little bit more freedom when it comes to electives and free hours as they start wrapping up their core requirements for graduation in the early years.
“In my freshman year, [there were] a lot of introductory courses, I didn’t really have much say over what I did, and I’d say after I get further into high school I get to choose more of what I’m interested in,” Popp said.
The most critical factor of course selection is timing. Although alterations can be made after course requests are submitted, the odds of getting placed into the wanted class become much more slim.
“I have a lot of students [who] come back [at the] beginning of the school year, asking for different classes and then they’re not available because we only assign enough room for the students who give us demand through this enrollment process,” Pinto said.
