Opportunies Abound

We are definitely fortunate to be able to attend a secondary school that offers so many course choices for us to pick from. We are given the chance to study different languages, sciences, arts, histories and much more. A problem with having so many courses to pick from, however, is that sometimes we will not be able to take all of the ones we would like to. Sometimes students must take courses they are not interested in just to fill the school’s diploma requirement. Other times, students force themselves to take courses that look good and rigorous, just to impress the colleges they are applying to.Most high school students around the world are not able to get the same education we Exonians get. Regular schools do not have Harkness tables or huge libraries with tons of books for students to use. They normally just have all their electives on just one or two sheets of paper, not a whole catalogue that students can pick up, flip through the pages and contemplate at the numerous amount of courses that they can take. This is great, because it promotes students to follow their passions and satisfy their academic curiosity. It is easy, however, for “external parties” such as graduation requirements and college applications to overrule a student’s pure academic curiosity.More than just a few times already, I have heard a decent amount of people say something along the lines of “Right now, I’m signed up for macro in the winter, micro in the spring, linear algebra and AP Physics. But if I get into college before spring term starts, I’ll just drop these courses and take something chill in the spring, like photo or printmaking.” Of course not everyone is like this, but there are many seniors who would love to kick back and relax during their senior spring term. But why would students initially sign up for the “harder sounding courses or the ones that have a high number next to them on the course of instruction catalogue?” It is because colleges want to see their applicants challenge themselves. They like it when students have a rigorous academic schedule all four years of high school, not just the first two or the last two.Besides trying to satisfy just colleges during application season, we have to satisfy Exeter as well. That is, we are required to take a specific type of course, a certain number of times and earn a minimum amount of credits in order to graduate. Some students are overwhelmed by the amount of interesting courses offered at Exeter, they decide to take all the ones that appeal to them early in their time at Exeter. They finish off the easier requirements, and some even take unnecessary courses, leaving them with necessary credits they need to get. Then, when the time comes, and one is able to take courses such as science electives, English electives or even higher level courses that students are passionate about, they are unable to do it because of the credits they need in order to graduate.If we plan ourselves well from the start, we will be able to take courses that we are genuinely interested in, fill all of the requirements we need to and take some courses that will look good on our college applications.