By: Luke Ren
MHS limited the number of community college courses a student is allowed to take for the second semester of the 2018-2019 school year. A similar decision in the past limited the number of classes from three to two; the decision made in 2019 limited the number from two to one.
The decision to limit the number of community college courses a student is allowed to take, although some would argue otherwise, is absolutely beneficial to the overall mental health and success of students at MHS. The goal of the decision was to ultimately limit the amount of unnecessary stress and nonstandardized education that a student may receive.
When a student takes a class at MHS, the curriculum and teacher are both auditable by the administration at this school. Essentially, we will be able to find out how much or how little the student was able to learn when taking an MHS class. However, when a student goes to a community college class, MHS has no jurisdiction over what the student is being educated on.
The community college class, under a different set of education and grading standards, may under prepare the student for the next subsequent class, which is absolutely detrimental for subjects such as math. Every year of mathematics builds on what the student has learned the year before; therefore, a weak understanding from one area of mathematics will affect the student’s success in a future class.
Even for a subject such as English, standardizing and guaranteeing what a student learns and receives from the class is important for the student’s future in college and the real world. Community college, for many students, is referred to as the “easy way out” because of its tendency to teach at a remedial or basic level of understanding, which can be detrimental to a student’s potential growth.
Community college should be an extension of one’s education, not a substitution. If you want to take a course that is not offered at our school simply because you want to further your learning, that is awesome. If you want to cheat yourself out of learning something genuinely valuable by rushing your education at a community college, that may not be ideal.
My argument is not that community college courses are necessarily detrimental or bad, it is simply that an excess reliance on such a resource can potentially hurt or limit one’s growth. By limiting this crutch, the administration encourages active participation in other activities that may bolster one’s college portfolio or overall character.
Being more active in extracurricular activities, doing more community service, and simply socializing with your classmates are some of the obvious ways you can spend your time improving your college portfolio rather than taking classes. A more obscure option, that I consider more beneficial, is simply to try new things.
If you have never had the chance, I highly suggest you try being on stage, taking a coding lesson, doing a crafts project, learning about a cool biology or astronomy concept, cooking a new recipe, taking a portrait of someone, animating a short film, teaching a friend about something you enjoy, editing a video, and for the more adventurous, starting a non-profit program. If these have not worked for you in the past, it does not hurt to try again.
It sounds corny, but high school is genuinely the most time you will have to discover yourself: your interests, your goals, and your passions. Find out what you like, don’t like, and, if not either, what you are okay with because soon enough you will have to find out the hard way.
You will never have the chance to do these things if you fill your time with classes and more work. If you are taking community college classes simply to feed your curiosity or improve your understanding of the world, there are other methods of doing so without filling up your schedule with more paperwork. There is a resource with practically infinite knowledge that teaches through multiple mediums and is flexible with your schedule called the Internet.
The limitation on the number of community college courses is less of a limitation, and more of an opening of opportunities for those intent on throwing themselves into unnecessary levels of anxiety. I highly encourage you, even if you’re not considering taking a community college course, to take the opportunity to step up and define your future.