I don’t even know what I like to do. I know what I’m good at, or at least what I’m able to get good grades on, but I genuinely don’t know what I like to do. This is very concerning at this stage in my life, especially since this is the age when I’m supposed to be figuring out what I’d like to do for the rest of my life.

It seems to me like most of my peers have it figured out, which makes me feel all the more aimless. They’re on career paths. They latched onto STEM early on and are now en route to become engineers or doctors or even neuroscientists. I’m en route to graduate high school with a bunch of unrelated AP classes under my belt. Does this grant me versatility or does it deem me “unfocused” in the eyes of college admissions officers?

Most of us are just trying to get through high school with good grades, nevermind what classes we have to endure. If loading up with AP courses is what it’s going to take in order to get that 1 point GPA inflation, then so be it. Right?

I’m not so sure of that now. It’s resulted in me taking a bunch of unrelated classes which frankly I was never interested in, to begin with. Sure, I learned to like or even love most of these classes, but just imagine how much more I might have loved taking a course that I genuinely found interest in from the get-go, like animal science or astrology or something completely random and not AP. Not only would high school have been much more enjoyable, but I could probably have harnessed this genuine interest in getting better grades. But alas, they would have been good grades in on-level classes and those still would have paled in comparison to the inflated grades that AP courses offer.

Following suit with many others, I’ve adhered to the strict curriculum of the few interesting AP classes I could find, and that’s not many. Do you know how many AP classes are offered in FISD? 32, and some are only available online. The remaining number may still sound like a plausible amount, but the majority are core subjects and most of the rest is just frankly not that alluring. I know there are a select few who would find the class “Physics C: Electricity and Magnetism” a sound prospect, but what becomes of the rest of us?

We are expected by our parents, peers, and even teachers to be these outstanding students, but eventually, we all come to realize the sad reality of that title. It entails sacrificing much of your educational freedom and caving to the AP curriculum set for us. If you aren’t taking an AP majority of classes, if you aren’t getting the grade inflation, you simply cannot compete in the rank system. You simply cannot be a “good student.” So as a result we’re nudged in the direction of AP classes and we’re sent down this narrow filter where we all end up enlisting into the same mundane classes.

I know I signed up for this, but in the end, I still feel like I’ve been deprived of some of the luxuries that should go along with belonging to such a sophisticated district that offers so many interesting (on-level) courses. If only they added more interesting AP courses the problem would be solved. But in this they run into the same dilemma as us: there aren’t enough courses to choose from. Not from the district’s register, but from College Board’s. Out of the 35 courses College Board offers, FISD has taken hold of an astounding 32 of them. So the problem isn’t with the district, it’s with the College Board. Everyone denounces College Board as being part of a money-hungry scam, but for more interesting AP classes, I surely wouldn’t mind paying.