By: Ferica Ting
For students taking several challenging courses, having an open period would be very appealing to them. Having fewer classes means that there are fewer classes to worry about. Unfortunately, not everyone is allowed to have an open period.
Seniors at MHS who are on track for graduation and do not have any more classes that they need to take can choose to have a senior open to fill in the empty spot. These open periods are only allowed during the first or last periods. How do seniors make use of this extra time?
“I have one senior open during sixth period,” Senior Wendy Ly said. “I just hang out at a table with friends [during my open period],” Ly said.
Ly said Ly does not go home during her open 6th period, because she has to attend tennis practice after. She does homework and chat with her friends while waiting for practice, she said.
“I had two open periods during fifth and sixth during the first three weeks of school,” Senior Tiffany Thai said. “I go home, and then I go to sleep,” she said. “Then when I wake up, I do homework.”
According to Thai, open periods help her be more productive, because she gets to catch up on homework. However, non-seniors should not be allowed to have open periods, Thai said. Seniors are allowed to relax since they have worked hard for the past three years, and the non-seniors need to study their way up, she said.
“I think having an open period increases productivity,” Senior Anthony Vu said. “I think non-seniors should be allowed to have free periods if they are on track to completing all their high school credits needed for graduating,” Vu said. “A free period gives the student more time to do what they need to do, which helps build their time management skills.”
According to Vu, Vu stays at school sometimes during his open period and goes to his ceramics class to work on his project. He also makes use of the extra time to go to another class to catch up on classes he may have missed during the day because of other activities, he said.
“A open period allows the student to focus on the classes they want to take instead of wasting time on unwanted classes just to fill all six periods,” Vu said. “[Open periods] especially helps students students that have a lot of extracurriculars that just don’t have enough time for six classes,” he said.
An open period is advantageous to everyone, Vu said. He said not only do open periods give students more time, it also helps deal with the traffic problem at MHS. Students will be entering and leaving school at different times, which potentially lessens the traffic, he said.