High School is the most important factor in a teen’s decision on what they want to do with their life. Having to decide so early on a major and not having true exposure to what certain college classes are like, students really can only base their decision on their enjoyment of high school electives. While there are a lot of elective options at Hauppauge High School, is it enough to guarantee a student’s future? Are they offering the right classes? 5 Hauppauge High School students gave their opinions on what electives should or shouldn’t be offered at our school to see if students believe they have all the exposure to as many career paths deemed necessary to make the correct choice of what they want to do with their life.
Current Electives:
Our school doesn’t lack a quantity of electives. With the ones available during the school day, there is an abundance of options for classes for students to take. There are a lot of classes based on the 4 core subjects (English, mathematics, history, and science). For example, there is creative writing and journalism for English, statistics (AP and none) for mathematics, astronomy, and oceanography for science, everyday law and history through film for history, and more throughout each. BOCES is an out-of-school program that allows students to miss half of the day to study a career or technical program. Some of these include animal science, practical nursing, cosmetology, and more.
Students Opinions:
Where the arguable defect comes in is the availability of career programs in the school itself. Some students are not willing, or even able to give up half of their day to take one program out of school. I asked 5 students what electives they think should be added to the school’s program, and a common theme among them all was classes teaching teens how to easily progress into the adult world. Sophomore Liz says “I think cooking classes should be added because it’s a necessary skill” and Sophomore Hannah says, “More life skill electives like writing checks, addressing envelopes, etcetera”. While the school does have some business classes, none of them go into a lot of depth involving things like taxes and money management. Sophomore Madeline says “Cooking but not even because it’s a life skill, because it’s fun and a cool way to express art.” Though learning life skills is important since, well, life, they can become fun. Baking, decorating cakes or rooms, planning parties or schedules, all things that could teach someone so much yet be enjoyable and even lead to a possible career path. Sophomore Trinity says “Maybe some sort of gardening class, or a greenhouse for students to work on,” and sophomore Ava says, “More marketing or electrical classes, like plumbing maybe.” Overall, students at Hauppauge High School want classes focused on basic career paths accessible to them in school, without having to sacrifice half of their day to go to BOCES. Even if it is just the studying of the subject, and not the actual practicing, since it may not be possible to get things like animals and sinks to have future veterinarians or plumbers test on, it would still be easy access to information on life skills.
My opinion:
My opinion on the school’s options for elective courses doesn’t differ too much from the 5 students I interviewed. I believe that there should be culinary classes or baking classes available in school. We all went through a very short period of home ec in middle school, but that went through very limited bullets of information on the subject. There should be full electives teaching students the basics of cooking; how to make pancakes, how to use an oven properly, and how to make your mom a cake for her birthday. While these are things you could do at home on your own, so is learning algebra and writing synthesis essays on 1984 by George Orwell. Kids learn better at school. They focus more and being around friends makes it fun! School is meant to be an educational experience and an enjoyable experience. Adding classes like cosmetology and baking to the actual school curriculum will be academically and socially helpful.
