Students are required to take two years of a language, but for the 22 AP Spanish 4 students and one AP Spanish 5 enrolled for the current school year, the extra years could potentially pay off when it comes college application time.

In the eyes of AP Spanish 4 teacher Makenzi Epps, the benefits of taking four years of Spanish extend beyond a high school resume.

“I absolutely think students need more than two years of Spanish,” Epps said. “The reason being after two years you have a basic understanding of what it is, but not enough to travel abroad and use it. I think it takes through AP Spanish 4 where you actually build your confidence to feel like you can go into a number of situations and use the language effectively.”   

Sophomore Alex Rocha, is planning on taking Spanish all throughout her high school year.

“I want to minor in Spanish,” Rocha said. “Knowing Spanish has its benefits like you get paid a lot more, you can work internationally, Spanish 4 and 5 are AP so it helps with GPA.”

Rocha’s family is originally from Brazil and she speaks fluent Portuguese, a language  similar to Spanish.

“Since I know Portuguese, it makes learning Spanish ten times easier because of the similarity of the sentence structure, vocab, and conjugation,” Rocha said.

Much like English literature and English language differ, AP Spanish 4 and AP Spanish have different focuses.

“AP Spanish 4 is language and culture, so it’s divided into six thematic units where you use Spanish to discuss different themes,” Epps said. “AP Spanish 5 is a literature and culture course, so it goes through different types and periods of literature.”

Registering for AP Spanish 4 in the 2018-19 school year, junior Lisa Punnen hopes to potentially help her future career.

“I heard that learning Spanish is useful for people in the medical field,” Punnen said. “Since I want to be a doctor, I thought that being able to speak and understand spanish would give me the opportunity to access and help a larger group of people.”