Last night Asher and I attended a Course Expo at the high school to learn about the various course offerings. His course selections for high school next year are due tomorrow already!
It’s hard for me to wrap my brain around the fact that I will have two kids in high school next year. WHAT?!
Asher is really excited about all of it, as I knew he would be.
*As I’ve mentioned in the past, Asher will be going to a different school from where Ethan goes. (Ethan’s is a private high school- which has been absolutely fantastic so far and we all love- but Asher has chosen to go the local public high school- which I have no doubt will also be fantastic and we will also love (for him).)
I am mostly just NOT thrilled about the fact that they will have fairly drastic different school calendars. The start and end dates are staggered by about 2+ full weeks on either end. But it is what it is, and we will just have to deal with it. The way time is flying, it will all be over before I know it, anyway. 😭
We both thought the Course Expo was really helpful. Each department had a table with teachers available to answer questions, handouts with info about the various courses, etc. We also attended a presentation about the AP program.
As a freshman, a large number of his courses are sort of pre-selected for him (Biology, Geometry, English, etc.). So he mostly just needed to sort out his electives- but there are a lot to choose from.
Spanish will automatically take up one full year slot, and he has a 1/2 credit required gym class that eats up another semester.
Since he is planning to do 2, possibly 3, high school sports (soccer (fall), swim (winter), and maybe… golf in the spring?? Not sure on that, but he likes golf and is interested, TBD), he decided he should take a Study Hall all year, too. He’s in the process of applying for part-time jobs now that he’s 14, and he wants to take an AP World Studies class freshman year. So, I think since he will be pretty busy, a study hall is definitely a good choice.
That really just leaves 1 full year slot open and another 1/2 year slot for electives.
He really has no idea “what he wants to be when he grows up” yet. He is someone who I think has many different interests and diverse talents, he’s a 4.0 student so far in middle school, so he’s strong academically…. I think he could be successful in and enjoy any number of different careers.
He’s great at art and really creative. I’ve always thought it would be cool for him to consider something like, working for Pixar and making animated movies! But he doesn’t seem to really want to do that. haha. He has a pretty outgoing personality and he’s quick on his feet, so I think he could do well in any number of business fields (+ his natural creativity, could be a great combo). I could also see him working in a “helping” career + something active, like, I don’t know… Physical Therapy or Sports Medicine or something like that? I could see him being an architect! Or a civil engineer. He loves 3-D printing, so maybe something in computer science or design?? (Obviously these are all just me brainstorming- these are clearly decisions for him to make! He’s still very much in the “exploration” phase.)
Anyway, he was interested in an Intro to Engineering class but decided to wait on it for now. (It’s a full year class and he wanted to do a couple different 1/2 credit classes instead for more variety right now.) He also decided that I guess he isn’t going to continue in band. 😦 (Sad, but also, I kind of get it, since the band elective eats up more electives spots and you can’t try other things then! Especially since he also wants to do Spanish all 4 years.)
Others that interested him: Sports Nutrition, Drawing, Marketing Principles, Intro to Business and Marketing, a Civil Engineering class, Intro to Engineering, Intro to Medical Professions, Foods I, General Woodworking… so many choices.
I think he finally settled on:
- 1/2 credit Health (required before graduation, so he wants to just get that done and out of the way)
- 1/2 credit Intro to Business and Marketing
- 1/2 credit Ceramics I (he really wanted to do this! Why not. This is the time to try things and explore and will probably be fun :))
Then he’ll have the standard Biology, Geometry, English, AP Human Geography, Spanish 2, a 1 semester gym class, a 1 semester Health class and Study Hall.
Hopefully he gets into his chosen electives! If not, he listed some alternates.
Anyway, exciting times for him. He also is super excited about high school sports.
Still is crazy to think about both of my kids being in high school….But life marches on, and I know these are all good things. 🙂
Daily Gratitude:
I am grateful that the course expo was helpful! Nice that they offered that.
GRATEFUL KAE 
The biggest truth of all “the way time is flying it will all be over before I know it”. Sigh.
It was always obvious that my oldest stepson would be “just like his father” and be a computer programmer, and so far that’s exactly where he’s headed in his second semester of college. The youngest? That’s a mystery. He *might* end up in programming, but right now he’s being a rebel and taking an engineering track in high school. He has no shortage of talents, so I can see him surprising us and doing something completely different. It’s just fun to be along for the ride.
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I think it’s nice when the kids have a clear idea of what they want to do! But unfortunately, it’s not that way for many people… even adults included sometimes, I think, who are still figuring out their longer term career path! It’s HARD! I am trying to encourage exploration and thinking outside the box a little. I feel like there are so many careers out there that we don’t even think of right away. Like… I don’t know. Being an airline pilot. Or like Erin below, a career counselor! Or a… food scientist. Or a million other things. I feel like my mind tends to think of the common things, like, engineer, doctor, nurse, teacher, lawyer, accountant, etc etc. It’s hard to know exactly how to help them figure this stuff out when I personally also find it sort of overwhelming myself. haha! Will be excited to hear what your step-son eventually lands on.
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Yes, it’s crazy that we’re already thinking about next year- and high school is a big transition!!! And I did think about how the schedules will be different, when you mentioned they’re going to different schools. It’ll just make it a little more tricky to plan vacations, but I know plenty of families who do it. My husband teaches at a private school but my kids went to public, so we’re totally used to the different schedules.
About band- it’s a bummer, but it really is a big time commitment. Especially during football season- I don’t know what your school is like, but at our school everyone who takes a band class is REQUIRED to be in the marching band, which involves after school rehearsals and then the games of course. It sounds like Asher has a lot of great options, and I’m glad he’s so excited about high school! I remember I was scared to start high school (I couldn’t really tell you what exactly I was scared of) but my daughter couldn’t wait to get out of middle school. Good luck with everything!
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Good point about the time commitment band requires! I think with him doing various sports, it’s probably just as well. I did orchestra in high school but really only did one high school sport (volleyball) in the fall. And I don’t think orchestra took up as much time as band does, though we did have competitions and played at events, concerts etc and I took private lessons too outside of school.
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Annie just went through registration for HS here too (it is always shocking how early it is!) – the next 2 years all 3 of mine will be at different schools but at least in the same district so they’ll have the same days off.
Annie is doing a similar schedule as Asher – their school does some kind of system where they only have 5 longer classes at a time, so each class you only take 2/3rds of the year which does allow a little bit more flexibility for electives. She’s also doing AP Human Geography, and then accelerated geometry, accelerated English, and NORMAL Science (which she was adamant about), along with Spanish. She had it all figured out and was 100% uninterested in any input from me, that’s for sure 😛
Her electives are fascinating to me!!! Beyond Spanish, her top choice was “Managing Your Money”, and then she chose basically all the cooking and sewing classes. I have NO IDEA what she’ll do as a career (and I’m a college career counselor, so I fully abide by the idea that no choices need to be made now – just keep doing things and getting good grades and they’ll be fine). They have so many fun options in her school – it’s a massive public HS so I hope she takes advantage!
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Oh that’s great!! Asher also really wants to take the Personal Finance class but ultimately decided to wait and take it another year “once he has a job and some actual money to manage”. Haha. I definitely support him taking that class! I was also impressed and happy with how engaged Asher was in the whole process- he was very thoughtful about it all. I think the cooking/food classes are really popular here too! Asher was interested in the Foods class but ended up listing it at as an alternate and went with Ceramics for now. My older son has no idea yet either what he wants to be and I think it stresses him out a little. He is a freshman now and we just got the email about starting the selection process for next year’s courses too at his school. I think it’s easiest when kids are say, really super into math and science and can just say, oh, engineering! Or pre-med! But Ethan is more just so-so in math and science.. but figuring out what to do more in the liberal arts, language, reading/writing strength area always feels trickier.
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That all sounds great! Keep me posted if he finds a job. With L, we are having the problem that no one is calling back. Business idea: I should just be a freelance HR specialist for service-oriented businesses responding to every application and letting kids down gently or creating form letters lol.
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Hahaha! I’ll keep you posted! 😉 He is also being a little picky/ selective at the moment, but his tune may change if the phone stays silent on callbacks… 😉
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Wow, he has access to such cool electives. Since I went to a teeny tiny school, I did not have much to choose from. Basically things like shop, home economics, band, choir, or spanish. I chose spanish bank and choir. I am glad my kids will have much more diverse options so they can maybe get a head start on figuring out what degree to pursue. My eldest nephew started at a 4-year college and then transferred to a 2-year tech school after one semester. But my dad and his dad are electricians so I’m not surprised he ended up going that route, but it was good for him to try a traditional 4-year college path before making a final decision. My other nephew is at the UofM and is pursuing electrical engineering or computer science. I majored in math but I had no idea what I was going to do with that major. It all worked out, but it’s much easier if there is a clear path forward for your degree!
It will be interesting to see what our kids are drawn to. So far, Paul seems to really take after me. Like he does not appear to have much athletic ability. For example, at his after school program, they are usually in choice time when I pick him up and he’s nearly always reading or listening to an audiobook or something along those lines. He’s never in the gym! I asked him about it yesterday and he said “I’m not really a running around type.” Lol. He does love being outside and he’s an active kid, but I don’t think he is drawn to traditional sports. Phil was very athletic so maybe Taco will be our sportier kid. Time will tell.
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I don’t remember what my high school all offered in the way of electives, but I think I was pretty filled up anyway with French + orchestra. That’s one negative to doing music- it tends to be something you do all 4 years, and it takes up space from other elective options! I did a bunch of AP classes, which was fine, but in hindsight I wonder if I might have been better served by at least a few more “exploratory” type classes. I was never much into Math and Science yet took AP Calculus, AP Physics, etc… again, fine, but sort of irrelevant. I went on to college not really having any idea of what I wanted to do, and ended up not deciding until well into my sophomore year to go into Nursing + Spanish… but honestly nursing ended up being sort of a hail mary decision as I was kind of running out of time to figure it out and had to do something! I don’t regret it exactly, but I also don’t feel like Nursing was necessarily my calling, as it is for some people. It’s a good career and has served me well, so no complaints, but I sometimes feel like maybe there was something else out there for me. Oh well, it has all worked out and I’m happy with the direction my nursing career has gone now. What I’m doing now is much better suited to my skills and interests than just bedside nursing was (although that was very fulfilling in its own right, so again, I don’t regret the 10 years I spent doing that!).
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Wow, they have such cool elective options! I think in my high school our only choices for electives were art, shop, band/orchestra/choir, home ec, and typing haha. I wasn’t that excited about any of them so I kind of wish I were a high school student in today’s era!
Also, I feel you on the school schedule–that would drive me crazy to have my kids on different school schedules. Our kids go to the same public school district so we don’t face that issue but I teach at a university so MY breaks are not the same as theirs, which is a pain (the big one is spring break–so we can never take a big family spring break trip). The good thing is I have so much flexibility in the summers so we really lean into summer travel.
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Yes, the spring break + vacations thing is a big one! Next year (24-25) their spring breaks DO line up, even though they’ll be at different schools. After that, who knows! But I guess by the following year (25-26), Ethan will be a Junior already, so, there will really only be 2 more years to worry about it before we move on to thinking about college schedules!! Yikes.
Having summers flexible for travel is so awesome. My mom was a teacher and we definitely got spoiled having her free to be with us all summer long. When I worked inpatient it was really hard as we were limited to only X amount of days off during the peak summer schedule, AND it went by seniority… so there was no guarantee to get specific days off. I dreaded that whole process. On the plus side, the kids were littler at that time, so we simply didn’t travel as much anyway then, and we were more easily able to just go somewhere in the fall, etc. if needed.
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I didn’t know what I wanted to do until late 20s. 20 years later, I feel like a lot has to do what opportunities we were given, people we meet, and exposure to different options. As long as he has a good academic record, energetic and curious about new things and willing to try, I am sure he’ll thrive in whatever job he lands.
One of the best advise I’ve been given when I graduated college is that: it’s not about choosing where one is natural good fit, but to build the foundation to expand your options, then you can choose whatever you are interested/passionate about. If you have good work ethic and persistence, you’ll succeed in anything you choose.
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This is all so exciting! And I kind of love that each kid gets to have their own experience, individual from one another. That’s neat. Sounds like he is going to have so many great options ahead of him!
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He doesn’t have to know what he wants to do when he grows up at 14, but I think it’s great that he has so many things to choose from to try and find his interests! Very exciting!
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In so interested in how it goes with them in different schools. I also have an 8th and 9th grader and it has been so good for my older one to have his own space this year (the 8th grader is probably a stronger student/stronger personality). Next year they will be in the same school again, but when we move back to the US I am really hoping to put them in different schools. I’ll be following along…I do worry about the different school schedules, but I will also have one in middle school and one in college and our days of same school breaks are numbered anyway.
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Good gracious, that is a lot of elective options! Like others, my school was so small that it was art, music (choir/band/orchestra/combo), shop, home ec, and a few others, including languages, of course! I’m glad Asher has so many options – this is the time to think about this stuff! Hope the job options shake out, too.
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