Course Selections
By: Aveen Burney, Calista Lee, and Catherine Wu
Students selected their courses for the 2022-2023 school year this week. This process, called “big reg,” took place from Monday, April 18 through Wednesday, April 20. The senior lottery took place the week prior. The lottery provides an equitable way to register for limited-enrollment electives for rising seniors. Students consulted with their advisers, college counselors, peers, and families during the course planning process.
Most teachers feel excited and ready for the new classes. “I am excited to teach all and any of my courses,” physics instructor Tatiana Waterman said. “I am never nervous or worried about any course. Why? Because they all have Exonians in them.”
Biology Instructor Anne Rankin agreed, speaking about the different merits of each of her courses. “ I love different classes for different reasons. I love BIO486 [Introducotry Genetics] for all the logic and puzzles. I love BIO586 [Molecular Genetics] for the lab work. I love BIO210 [Introduction of Biology] because it is the first high school science class for ninth graders. I love BIO230 because we have made a commitment to teaching about climate change in the Introductory Biology curriculum.”
History Instructor Troy Samuels discussed a new course he is introducing, History Through Food. He said, “There's a lot of development work, but we will actually be learning, tasting, and eating while using the whole range of senses to think about historical questions, which is a new thing here. I'm really just over the moon.”
Similar to their teacher counterparts, students from all grades discussed courses they are excited to take in the 2022-23 school year. “I’m excited to take a few religion courses senior year,” upper Ryan Kim said. “One class I’m taking next year is Intro to Philosophy. When I was prep, a bunch of seniors told me how interesting the 500s religions were, so I’ve been looking forward to getting to take those classes for a while.”
“I’m really looking forward to Sports Science and History Through Food. I was really lucky to get both of them. I’m also excited for MAT790 Abstract Algebra, because a lot of people recommended it to me and a lot of my friends said the course was really good. And I’m taking a lot of fun classes in the spring with my friends,” upper Max Chuang said.
“My interests lie in the sciences, so I am definitely most excited for my chemistry course next year,” lower Sophia Lala said. “ I haven't had much exposure to this subject in the past, but because I love biology, I am sure chemistry will be really interesting as well.”
Preps are looking forward to taking fun courses during their next year as well. “I am most excited to take both chemistry and biology next year. These are courses I’ve never taken before and they sound very interesting,” prep Lang Gou said.
“Next year, I’m looking forward to taking History 309 which focuses on skin colors and race and other outside traits… The class seems really riveting and I’m looking forward to discussing the ideas the materials might provoke. I am also looking forward to taking Art 208… Personally, I really enjoy art and also because it will be my first art class at Exeter,” prep Soleil Jamani said.
Uppers shared their experiences with the senior lottery. “I was really lucky and got the classes that I wanted to take!” upper Lara Muyombwe said. “I only put in English electives and I was able to get all of the ones that I chose.”
Kim agreed, “I’m super happy with the classes I got in the senior lottery. I got my first or second choice for both terms of English, and am definitely looking forward to them.”
“I am excited to take Food History in the spring and Principles of Engineering and Design in the fall. Some of my English electives should be fun as well,” upper Leyla Unver said.
Students discussed how they chose their courses for senior year. “I looked for classes that related to my interest,” Kim said. “In the spring, for example, I’m taking Baseball: an American Narrative. I’ve been a huge baseball fan forever, so I’m super excited that I get to take a class like that my senior spring. And in the winter I’m taking a course on Kazuo Ishiguro, who’s been one of my favorite authors for a while, so I’m super excited for that class as well.”
For Muyombwe, it was similar. “I looked for courses that pertained to really interesting things! I love creative writing and I thought it would be amazing to take an elective dedicated to that, and I thought the course description for the Harlem Renaissance elective was really intriguing as well.”
“In terms of senior year English electives, I just chose the courses my friends chose,” Chuang said. “I am taking [Pages To Screen: Film Adaptaions]– which is awesome because I get to watch movies (for homework). And then I got Salman Rushdie, which was my third choice.”
For underclassmen, deciding courses also involved hard choices for many. “As a rising upper, my classes for next year didn't require a lot of thinking because I am just taking higher levels of all the core subjects as well as U.S. History. However, I definitely did consult as many people as I could, including my parents and my advisor,” Lala said. “I do think that my classmates were the biggest help to me because I received their advice on specific classes, some of which they had already taken, and I could then decide on my choices accordingly.”
“Deciding my courses was a long and difficult process. I talked for months with my parents as well as consulted with upperclassmen,” Guo said.
“For picking my courses, I talked to upperclassmen and people in my dorm to figure out which classes they enjoyed,” Jamani agreed, “And their opinions on taking physics or chemistry, and then I also talked with my advisor and my parents to finalize my decisions for next year.
And for subject-specific courses, “I talked to Mr. Leger, the head of the Science Department, to get a better sense of the workload,” Huang noted.
Regarding the course selection process, many students offered their opinions and potential suggestions for improvement. “The process was slightly stressful because there was such a short window for registration,” lower Eric Wu said. “I wish the administration would widen the window to something like a month because there’s no apparent reason why it must end so early.”
“They could update the Lion Links [the site for course registration] page because it’s very confusing,” prep Siri Bompelli said.
“I do think that they could make the online platform, Lion Links, more interactive. Right now, the design isn't the best, which makes it slightly complicated to sign up for the classes that you want,” Lala agreed.
Some underclassmen noted the difficulty of fitting courses into their limited schedules and diploma requirements. “My biggest problem with course selection is that there are so many courses I want to take, but not enough time to take them,” Gou said.
“Making sure that you meet all the graduation requirements is very difficult. Lion Links is a place where I can look, but I wish that other adults knew about the requirements better, so if they look at my plan for the next few years, they would have a better understanding of what was missing,” prep Sarah Huang said.
The senior lottery presented a unique set of challenges as well. “The senior lottery is fine– it’s random. For the lottery, I wish you could have a preference for English electives during winter and spring terms. Not just ranking within term, but also ranking overall what we’d want to have,” Unver said.
Some students find the senior lottery to be a detrimental process. “My experience with the senior lottery was terrible,” upper Krish Patel said. “This school prides itself on its academic rigor and the academic opportunities which it provides, yet the robust curriculum is pointless if students interested don’t have opportunities to take their courses of choice.
Instructors also notice the downsides of the senior lottery. Sometimes, when students do not get the classes they wanted most, “the instructor's energy doesn't align with the student's energy. It just becomes hard to make the course feel alive. about it.” English Instructor Elizabeth Dean said. “[Try to] be ready to get into the subject.”
Chuang offered suggestions regarding the ranked course selections within the senior lottery. “I feel like it's kind of weird how they run the non-English senior lottery,” Chuang said. “You only get one slot– you can rank three choices, but what if you want to take two non-English senior lottery courses? And I wanted to take both Sports Science and the Intersection of Science, Health, and Race, but I only got one choice.”
“Our school’s distinct hierarchy by grade is exactly how course registration should work,” Patel continued. “Rising seniors should get the first chance to sign up, followed by uppers, then lowers. This allows rising seniors the opportunity to sign up for courses they have been waiting for for three years before students who have been waiting less time. This makes sense since the registration isn’t based on merit or any other factors besides whose network connection is the quickest.”
“I think maybe it could be cool to have everybody fill out a registration, then send it in, so it's not a matter of ‘who has the best wifi at 9:50 a.m. on some random Monday.’ And what if somebody has a meeting? There’s also some [rising] uppers who got my spot for Engineering Design, and I feel like some priority should go to seniors, or it’s kind of weird that some popular courses weren’t in the lottery,” Chuang continued.
Despite some flaws, most students and teachers are looking forward to classes next year. With so many interesting courses, it’s hard to pick one. It can also be nervewracking to pick new classes covering topics one might not be familiar with. Even teachers experience this, but as Rankin said, this anxiety is normal. “I think a little nervousness reminds me that I really care about what I am doing. [Fomer instructor] Mr. Aaronian told me a long time ago that I should be worried if I was not nervous!”
