Students contemplate next year’s classes

By Priscilla Lee,

BlueDevilHUB.com Staff–

Not only are high school seniors stressing over college applications, students entering into high school have taken up the stress that accompanies decisions, like picking their classes.

Davis High alumnus Hyungseob Shim’s main reason for choosing his classes was to earn the highest GPA, which got him accepted into UC Davis.

Students at DHS use different criteria for choosing classes, including class credits, recommendations, personal interest, grade weighting and plans for college and careers.

“Most of my classes were recommended to me by my brother who’s now in college… he liked the class and the teacher,” senior Nova Zhang said.

Senior Hannah Lu chose many of her classes due to credits and her own personal interests. “I chose [microeconomics AP] for the AP credits and so I can take the AP test so in college I can be exempt from certain classes… and I like art so I just chose art AP,” Lu said.

Senior Aditi Mahajan is preparing for her college applications. In regards to Spanish 4, she took it to go a little beyond the graduation requirements and “partly also because becoming a doctor it’s important to… be bilingual in something… because it would look good for colleges.”

On the contrary, having survived through his first quarter at DHS, sophomore Alex Gao chose to take all his classes to challenge himself, to meet graduation requirements and to pursue some of his passions, for example music.

“I feel like I could do better,” Gao said. Although the busy sophomore is able to accomplish all the tasks required of him, he believes that with better time management, more sleep, and less perfectionism he can achieve more each day to become successful.

“A B in an honors [class] is better [than an A in a regular class] because it shows that you challenged yourself,” Gao said, who is currently taking a total of four honors and AP classes, double the number recommended for sophomores.

Shim concurs with Gao. In high school, he chose as many AP classes as he could due to the grade weighting. “Taking an honors or AP class in itself shows the desire for a higher level of education,” Shim said.

The head counselor of DHS, Catherine Pereira, stated that whether a student performed better in a regular class compared to an honors class is viewed upon differently by each college.

“Colleges would like students to challenge themselves in those subjects they are most passionate about… [They] want to see you challenge yourself but also do the best you can,” Pereira said.