The Piedmont Highlander

The Student News Site of Piedmont High School

The Piedmont Highlander

The Piedmont Highlander

Scheduling, it’s not a competition

That time of the year approaches. One of the most stressful times of the year: scheduling. Seven blank spaces anticipate to be filled with a correlating course selection for the following year. Through time we develop a schedule fashioned to our academic needs. But through the process, our true academic desires get lost in translation, influenced by what other students sign up for. AP this, honors that: our schedules then seem to be belittled in comparison to others. So we trash our original list and instead of picking out classes that attract us, we add as many honors and APs as our overburdened schedules can feasibly bear.

Throughout junior year, I’ve noticed a common trend in the question “what weighted classes are you taking?” It’s this sort of competition that leads to us feeling as though we should take weighted classes in every subject, left or right, whether we like it or not.

When people answer by laundry-listing the APs or honors classes they are enrolled in, the courses sometimes contrast with their interests. For example, students double up on sciences in order to fit an honors or AP that can compensate for a lack of advancement in other subjects. It appears that their sole purpose is to take classes specifically for the GPA boost.

An AP class signals to admissions officers that we are ready for college–level work. If we bomb the class, we’ll send the opposite message.IMG_0276

Typically when people take classes in subjects they do not like, it becomes increasingly difficult to do well in. On top of that, taking the advanced level class makes it increasingly more difficult to get an impressive grade. Although we are adding rigor to our schedules, we are also adding rigor to subjects we may abhor. Junior year is hard regardless of APs or no APs, so why add difficult subjects we hate to our schedules?

As students, we want a challenge and that sometimes we secretly aspire to impress people with the classes we take. But it’s not worth struggling in a class we knew we would hate, just to be proud to tell people we’re in an honors.

For those of us who have the aptitude to enjoy and handle advanced classes across the board, then go crazy. However, for those of us who aren’t, we should focus on advancing in the subjects we genuinely enjoy.

Junior year is a whole lot of substance jammed into not a lot of time. I am by no means saying that one should not take APs, as it’s a great way to show interest in subjects and dip your toe into what college courses might be like. But what I am condemning is taking APs in subjects you don’t like just to do them. It’s not worth it to sign up for something we hate because the effort, late nights spent studying, and workload we will endure will seem pointless and feel awful.

So rather we should sign up for the APs in subjects that fascinate us or might give us motivation to stay up late reading and studying. Because two capitalized letters, “AP,” may create your own demise.

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