Xatal

If you still have a year left of high school to go, at some point you’re going to need to choose your classes for next year. Picking classes can be a bit tricky when you have to try to strike a balance between classes you’d like to take and classes you should take, as well as trying to fit in all the classes you want to take.

A lot can depend on the classes you take — the choices you make for next year could affect what you can take in the years after that, they could affect how appealing you look to colleges, and they could help determine what field you’d like to (or not like to) have a career in.

So where do you begin in deciding? I recommend starting with a course catalog, if you can find one from your school.

Once you have a course catalog, hunt through it and make a list of classes you think would be interesting and classes you think you should take (for whatever reason — to look good for college, to fulfill graduation requirements, etc). Only add classes you can get into — don’t bother with classes that you don’t meet the requirements for.

After you’ve made a list, try to narrow it down. Cross out the classes that you know aren’t a good choice. Start by asking yourself these questions:

1. Will this class look good for college? Is the class an academic class? Typically, math, science, English, foreign language, and social studies classes are the ones that will appear best, with an emphasis on the first three. Take honors/AP classes where you can.
2. Does it fulfill any requirement? Each high school has its own unique graduation requirements, and many colleges have admission requirements as well (the UCs/CSUs rely on the A-G requirements). Obviously, if you already met the requirement, this won’t be important.
3. Is this something I’m considering a career in? If you’re considering a career in a certain field or an interest, I strongly recommend taking a class in high school if possible to get an idea what you think of it. It’s better to find out early on in high school that you don’t like a subject than the middle of your senior year in college.

As fun as electives can be, I strongly recommend avoiding taking too many if you’re planning on going to college. It’s fine to take one elective (or maybe two if you have the space in your schedule) in a year, but taking three or four is going to reflect poorly on you, unless you’re taking the classes to fulfill a requirement. Instead of taking a bunch of electives, aim instead to choose the electives that sound the most interesting to you.

If you can’t decide whether you should take a difficult honors/AP class or not, I recommend signing up for it now. It’s much easier to switch out of a higher-level class into an easier one than to switch the other way. You’ll have an easier time fitting a different class into your schedule, and less willpower is required to drop out of a hard class than to switch into one.

If you’re unsure about your schedule, talk to your parents or see a school counsellor about it to get a few second opinions. You’ll be glad you did.