Honors courses demand more time, effort

A student stands where two roads diverge. He looks down one as far as he can, savoring the potential fruit of hard work after a year in an honors (or AP) course. He gives the other one a look—less stress, more time for extracurriculars. “Honors or regular?” he asks himself.

Students are often torn by this question. While they want the credit for taking the honors (or AP) course, they don’t necessarily have the time or the desire to really put time into the class.

Freshmen or sophomores who have taken biology have to choose between Chemistry Honors and regular chemistry.

Sophomore Margaret Maccoun decided at first to take Chemistry Honors; however, because of a lack of time, she chose to switch into the regular course.

“I thought that I would do OK even though there are stories that people don’t do well,” Maccoun said. “I switched out because I didn’t have enough time because of band. It also seemed to be too fast.”

She said that choosing between honors or regular really depends on a student’s schedule.

“[Students] should consider how much time they have on their hands, because it’s not going to take 15 minutes to study everything,” Maccoun said.

Sophomore Gloria Liou, who decided to stay with the honors curriculum, agrees that students must balance their schedules. In her opinion, taking the honors course for honors credit simply is not worth the trouble.

“It depends on if you want to sleep or not. If you’re in sports and orchestra and music, you have to be very careful when you pick what classes,” Liou said. “But I think if you want to do chemistry, if you’re interested in science, you have to take it.”

Another decision that students tend to struggle with is choosing between Trig/PreCalc Honors and Trig/Math 4.

Sophomore Michael Eschen wanted to take Trig/PreCalc Honors straight from Algebra 2 regular, but missed the required grade by 0.3 percent. From Trig/Math 4, he intends the switch into the class second semester. Eschen believes the transition will definitely be a challenge.

“[The transition] will probably be difficult,” Eschen said. “Trig/Math 4 doesn’t cover Chapter 7, and it was challenging to learn that by myself based off of [Trig/PreCalc Honors teacher Debra] Troxell’s notes. And you have to deal with Trig/Math 4 at the same time.”

Nevertheless, Eschen believes that he can make the transition because it is his own choice to switch; no one is forcing him to make the change.

“You have to want to do it more, whereas in regular classes [you’re] just doing it because you have to do it,” Eschen said.

Junior Candice Suh completed this transition last year.

“I started off the semester with Trig/PreCalc Honors but went back down because I had a rough start,” Suh said. “When I went down to Trig/Math 4, I really enjoyed the class, but it wasn’t challenging for me at all. I ended up raising my grade to an A so I went back to Trig/Precalc Honors.”

Suh learned an extra chapter and completed homework assignments over holiday break, but she found the work worthwhile.

“I definitely made the right decision. The class was still a little tough, but I got more out of the honors course than the regular course,” Suh said. “I don’t think we should worry so much about the difficulty but instead take the challenge and try your best.”

The math department will offer a regular Trig/PreCalc class beginning next year in addition to the two existing options.

According to Troxell, the regular Trig/PreCalc course and the honors equivalent will use the same textbook. However, the honors course will explore theoretical aspects in more depth.

“Trig/Math 4 was always intended for students in their senior year who wanted to be responsible and complete a fourth year of math in high school, but were probably not going to major in a field that required much math,” Troxell said. “The new Trig/PreCalc course will be appropriate for students who do well in Algebra 2 and would like to keep the door open to go to calculus, whether taken in high school or in college.”

In addition, Troxell warns that the honors course will become more difficult.

“Students in the honors course should be those who have a natural talent or passion for math and will major in a math-related field in college,” Troxell said. “The level of difficulty will be a bit more challenging than the course has been in the past.”

For current sophomores, another tough decision concerns their English selection.

Junior Andy Wong left his English 11 Honors class for regular equivalent after considering his odds of succeeding in the honors course.

“English [is not] my best subject. It’s safer to take a regular class that you can get a better grade in than trying to risk yourself trying to get a really good grade in honors,” Wong said.
Wong also took his other courses into consideration.

“If you’re struggling in honors, you might have trouble in other classes,” Wong said. “It really depends on how well you do with that subject.”

Junior Todd Nguyen began the year in regular English 11 because he feared he would overload himself. However, he decided to move into the honors course when he received his schedule and discovered he had English on days with relatively easy courses.

“I decided to challenge myself a little and I asked for advice from some seniors who took English 11 Honors last year,” Nguyen said. “They said that English 11 Honors isn’t that much to handle if I don’t have a lot of other stuff on the same day.”

Nguyen does not regret his decision.

“I think it was a pretty good decision. Even though I have more work to do, English has been helpful for me this year,” Nguyen said. “I think I’ve improved a lot.”

Nguyen and Wong agree that students must be prepared for more work and more effort if they choose to take honors.

“If you’re doing it just to get the honors credit and not really trying, you might have a hard time trying to get a decent grade. But if you know you can do well in honors, then take honors,” Wong said.