Scheduling Advice from a Senior
by: Jaiah Ignacio
As students are making their way through the second semester, it’s safe to say that summer couldn’t come fast enough. However, before reaching the anticipated month of May, underclassmen must endure scheduling, the dreadful, day-long fiasco where you pick out your classes for the next school year. Having successfully scheduled all four years, I’ve learned a few tips and tricks along the way. So, without further adieu, here is the guide to successful scheduling.
- Meet your benchmarks.
While this doesn’t sound like it would relate to scheduling, it’s a key component. When your haven’t met your ACT benchmarks, you’re set to fill out specific pathway classes to help prepare you for your future career path. However, if you’re like me and lean more towards the arts than nursing or engineering, you’ll find your options fall short. My advice: try to take the ACT as soon as possible. You’ll find out where you need to improve, and hitting your benchmarks early on will keep you out of being placed in a pathway you don’t want to be in.
- Take electives that you’ll benefit from.
Don’t get me wrong, a study hall can always be useful, but don’t load up on front office and student helper periods unless you’re going to use your time wisely (believe it or not, coolmath eventually gets boring). My advice: try to find classes you haven’t taken yet and hold your interests. If you put in the effort, you’ll not only learn something new, you’ll give your GPA a boost as well.
- Pick classes for YOU.
If you’re like me, you aren’t hit with the importance of your GPA until it’s too late to improve it. With that being said, don’t try to follow the crowd when it comes to picking classes. If you have the choice between Honors English and AP LANG, don’t choose AP LANG if you don’t think you’ll succeed. It’s good to push yourself in classes, but don’t pick something that’s too difficult because everyone else did. My advice: realize that your GPA is what follows you, not your class.
- Dual Credit.
Dual credit is a great opportunity to save a lot of money if you take it seriously. I wish I scheduled to do dual credit my sophomore year, but I wanted to get the complete high school experience, which is the downside to participating in off-campus classes. My advice: dual credit is great, but try and schedule some of your classes at OHS as well. If you’re always off campus/at home, you start to feel disconnected from the school.
To keep it real, scheduling will always suck. It’s a tedious process that makes you wish you were anywhere but at school, but taking it seriously will better you in the long run. So when this year’s scheduling day comes up, try to keep one thing in mind: you can play coolmath any time, but there’s only one day to schedule your entire school year.
