Time is Running Out to Request Courses: Is the timeframe too small?
February 3, 2020
This year, State High has switched the time slot available to choose classes for the upcoming year. Many students are not happy with this change because they feel rushed into choosing the classes they need for their rising school year. Is this change for the better? Or is it causing more stress for students to figure out what they want to choose too quickly?
“To have classes picked before summer, it allows students to be able to step into the building they’re not doing last-minute changes, not in classes, missing class,” Principal Curtis Johnson said. “It gets so backed up that the counselors can’t see you until like a month later and miss a month of class.” In the past when schedules would come out over the summer, students would spend the first month of school trying to figure out how they could make last-minute changes to their schedules. This caused backups in the system and took longer to finalize classes.
“I feel like we need more time, but it also depends on the kid and what they pick for their classes,” Maya Ikenberry, sophomore said. “Some students put a lot of thought into it. And especially when you have to think about what you want to do when you get older because there is a lot of stress over that so you want to pick the right classes. And sometimes you do not know if you will enjoy the class right now so you do not know if you want to take the advanced class in the upcoming year.” A lot of students are concerned that they will not know enough about the classes they are taking in order to be 100% sure those are the classes they will want to stick with.
“I think kids need a longer time to pick out their classes because it’s a long term choice,” Izar Cruden, sophomore said. “A lot of us are rising juniors so it is stressful to figure out what classes we would benefit from in such little time to decide.” Many students are starting their junior year and the majority of the classes they choose for the upcoming year are the classes that really start to matter for college. Although three weeks seems like a fair amount of time to pick out classes, a lot of thought and effort goes into it for students. Teenagers tend to overthink and need more time to settle on a final decision.
Even though switching the time slot to pick classes allows students more time to be stress-free over summer, sometimes it is better to take those months to think it through. The pro to this decision is that teachers now get to estimate how many students they will have this upcoming year and they can get on with their lessons right when the school year begins. Interests change, teens begin to overthink as well as under-think, and it is hard to know whether a student is truly interested in a class if they have not even gotten to experience it yet. This is the first time State High has made this change, it will be interesting to see how it plays out in this upcoming school year.