People often associate high school students who take college classes as geniuses. However, this wasn’t the case for me when I decided to try community college classes at West Valley and Mission college.
In sophomore year, I struggled in trig pre-calculus honors and chemistry honors while everyone around me seemed to ace the classes. When it was time to form my class schedule for junior year, I was fearful.
If chemistry honors was this hard, what would AP Chemistry be like? I had heard stories of just how hard Calculus BC was and I couldn’t see myself taking all these classes and getting A’s while also trying to study for the SAT at the same time.
During the summer after sophomore year, my dad offered me a solution. He asked if I wanted to take calculus at a community college so I wouldn’t have to have a killer schedule my junior year.
At first, I was extremely opposed to this because all my friends were having a fun summer and were expecting to take the same classes as me next year. Somehow, he got me to sit in a calculus class my second week of summer, and I became interested.
The class was by far easier than my trig pre-calculus class since the teacher gave minimal homework and gave us an 8 by 11 sheet, double-sided, as a cheat sheet for the test. I ended up acing the class.
Even though I got the grade for the class, it wasn’t an easy transition. I was used to sitting with friends in classes to keep me company, but at the community college I didn’t know a single person. In addition, there were no class projects or participation points—everything was based on two midterms and one final exam.
Since homework wasn’t required, I didn’t have any motivation to do it. I had to really prioritize my time to study for tests since I fell behind on not doing the homework. While there was more pressure to do well on tests, I had a lot more time in between each of the tests to learn the material.
Because of this positive experience, I decided to drop AP Chemistry from my schedule so I could take a class equivalent to AP Physics the first semester of my junior year.
In our competitive high school environment, I often felt dumb compared to some of my other classmates. At one point in my sophomore year, I almost gave up trying since others seemed to pick up the material a lot quicker. At community college, I found that the classes are a lot more about studying on my own, and I was able to read ahead or catch up easily. I found myself enjoying math and science more than I had ever in the past since I was able to learn at my own pace.
Because I was taking two classes at two different community colleges (as a high school student, I am only allowed to take one class at each community college), I only take five classes at school. It happened to work out that last year and this year I was able to have a free third period and seventh period so I was able to attend the classes with weird schedules, but there was definitely some difficulty in achieving this.
While it is a hassle having to drive to class and sit in two to three hour lectures twice a week, these college classes have made my high school career a lot easier. Not only are the classes for the most part not as grueling, since they are college level classes, taking the AP test is not required for college credit. I have to say my May (AP testing season) was a lot more relaxing than for most of my other friends.
For those of you who are struggling in your classes, I would strongly suggest taking the same route I did. I have no regrets to my decision. I could have easily taken Middle College and probably completed more college classes, but I would have missed out on Homecoming, Spring Fling week, rallies, proms, newspaper, and more school events. I’ve truly had the best of both worlds—going to high school but also in a way taking Middle College to jump start my college career.
