Students take optional elective courses for their enjoyment. Classes such as drama, journalism, visual arts, financial literacy, dance, and more. They can be sources of stress relief for students to take courses through their own interests.
The administration gives out polls to students to find out their interests in June in regards to the next school year. However with the overcrowding of students not everyone’s desires are fulfilled. Many students have found themselves in classes they never asked to be in. There are some that did not even know they were supposed to have a choice in choosing their elective class. Elective classes are important, we needed credits from these classes to graduate. However when students are put into classes they have no interest in, it makes it hard for them to take the initiative to learn and excel in these classes.
I can not deny that there are still benefits to our elective classes, even if we did not choose to be placed in the one we are in. This can be taken as a positive experience where students can experience different forms of art, and have an understanding of where they stand on their career patterns. Nicole Flanagan started out the year with little interest in performing arts, and more to do with creating drawings. Yet, in drama class she expressed herself enough to perform in the optional play, and even got her written story published in the “Leap” book. Students’ minds are simulated through elective classes, they are taught to be more expressive and determined to learn more. Financial literacy, a new elective, can even encourage students who don’t particularly engage in mathematics to start thinking about their own futures with student loans or even car insurance.
So despite all the advantages, and even though many students have no choice in which elective they take, they are beneficial. However, I still strongly believe the organization and the process of choosing an elective class should be made more simple, or at least it should be explained to those affected by it, the students and teachers. The end of the first semester is coming and the majority have no idea whether they are staying in the electives they are currently in, which electives are a semester long, which are a year long. It’s important for this information to be accessible and explained to students.