Students Interests Met or Left to Forget

Isabella questions whether student's interests or required courses are taking precedent when choosing class schedules.

At FHS, there are over 80 elective courses available to students in which they are given a chance to pursue interests and curiosities. Under many different categories or topics, they are able to explore potential careers or begin to think about what they truly want to dabble in terms of their futures. Taking a deep dive into each elective, noticing what aspects of them do or don’t stand out, are key components or factors to take into consideration.

Within the many elective courses to choose from, they fall under roughly 10 categories. Such as Career Education, Consumer and Family Sciences, and Life Skills, English Language Arts, Visual and Performing Arts, Mathematics, Health and Physical Education, Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps, Science, Social Studies, World and Classical Languages, and Bilingual Education and English as a Second Language. No matter what students decide to take an elective in Freshman year, they always have the opportunity to try out many others in their upcoming years too. Taking an elective is meant to give flexibility and more leisure time to take away from the many other mandatory classes. Using these extra gaps in a schedule can become a huge distresser for students and even become a favored class that is looked forward to.

A fellow Junior at FHS, Claudia Martinez, responded to a few questions about the process of choosing an elective as a student. Before choosing an elective she says that her main priority and consideration are graduation requirements; she stated, “Due to the increase of graduation requirements that are due in a short amount of time, no, my interests are not being put into elective decisions.” Truthfully, the only downside about picking electives is that graduation requirement electives have to be the first priority before being able to have free choice.

Although, there could be many electives that fall under some students’ interests that are graduation requirements as well. If Claudia had to take purely interest based electives, not being a graduation requirement, she would pick, “Fashion Marketing or an Interior design class because my interests have to do with business, marketing, and interior design.”

Generally, electives are an essential part of high school and can be an even larger part of students’ very important life decisions. Take a look at the electives in past and present schedules and consider if they are beneficial long term or short. Do these classes leave an imprint with lasting knowledge or is time just being passed by?