The amount of freshmen entering Watauga High School has steadily increased until 2021, when the number of freshmen attending suddenly erupted. This school year, even higher numbers of freshmen have enrolled at Watauga High School.
Newer high school students may try to prepare for future jobs or colleges or they might try to create a path for themselves along the way. Freshman Sweeti Sin is a prime example of a student preparing for a future job they may want by registering for both culinary and interior design classes.
“I chose this because I want to own a cafe when I get older, so hopefully these classes can help me in advance,” said Sin.
Similarly to Sin’s response, around 42% of the respondents replied that they wanted to take classes based on what they want to do in the future, following a path that they have already paved for themselves. While many of the freshmen questioned answered with this response, there were some who wanted to mainly focus on their hobbies and interests compared to academics and the future.
“I want school to be more than academics. I want to be able to explore more things that I'm interested in as hobbies,” said freshman Avery Shanely.
Focusing on hobbies and having fun in high school may be the key to having an enjoyable time at school while also discovering or refining talents and hobbies that may mature into a job later in life. While a lot of the freshmen are split between focusing on academics and hobbies or personal interests, there are still quite a few of them who didn’t focus too much on each interest individually, and instead decided to be more well-rounded by taking classes that focus on their future and classes relating to their interests and hobbies.
“One is a hobby, one is for college, and one is for academic rigor,” said freshman Kylie Eldreth.
Balance is extremely important no matter what, and high school is no exception. Balancing between academics and hobbies may help relieve stress on students and might make them have a better attitude towards school in general. While students can get what classes they want for the next year, there are limitations and restrictions that prevent some students from taking classes they want.
“I wanted to pair Symphonic Band with AP Precalc but they didn't go together,” said freshman Abbi Clark.
Year-long classes are a great opportunity to learn new things over the course of the year, but unfortunately not every year-long class can pair with each other, which limits the classes students can take.
“I wanted to double up on math but I'm already taking Spanish so it takes up the extra spot math would,” said freshman Beau Underwood.
Schedule incompatibility is a recurring problem when it comes to registration, which can be somewhat troublesome when registering for classes. Schedule incompatibility isn’t the only hindrance in registration. Lack of credits and grade requirements may hold many students back when they want to take something more advanced or serious than the classes available in their sophomore year.
In response to a survey on what classes students weren't able to take freshman Mitch Jasper responded, “Ceramics 1, I don’t have an art credit.”
Freshman may be interested in the vast amount of classes offered in their sophomore year, but are then informed about the credit requirements and grade requirements of the classes they wanted to take, and are barred from taking until they complete related classes since they weren’t able to gain any credits from their middle school years. Since freshmen may not be able to take classes they’re interested in, they may be left with a bad taste in their mouths for the years to come. However, if students take all the prerequisite classes in their underclassman years, they have higher chances of a better upperclassmen experience.
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