Parent of a 9th grader here. My son has 3.8 GPA in middle school & first sem of 9th, and enrolled in accelerated math. He is interested in a STEM degree. We are in CA.
There is choice to go for Honors class for almost every subject for 10th grade courses. But I think it will be too much for him. So we want to trim it down to a handful. Interested in hearing your opinions regarding what Honors classes should stay on the list, and what can be dropped.
6 subjects in 10th…
Spanish 3 (pre-req met, A grade in Spanish 2 till now, no contest)
Pre-calculus (accelerated path, A grade in 9th till now, no contest)
Chemistry, or Chemistry Honors (In accelerated path, A grades in science till now, first time taking honors) - heard Chemistry honors can be lot of work
Principles of Eng, or PoE Honors (elective, has done Intro to CS in 9th, A grade till now)
World History or AP European History (A grade in social sciences in MS, but not a fav subject) - APs are tough, but World history would be broader than EU history & hence tough? not sure! Is English honors course relevant for STEM degree?
English, or English Honors (A grade in MS honors, B in 9th grade Honors) Is History honors course relevant for STEM degree?
This may sound trite, but he should take what interests him. Don’t try to game for a STEM degree. Other than staying on the math path, students take all sorts of classes.
Our son finished HS with all As, got into a very competitive engineering program and now works for a highly desirable and competitive tech company. He graduated from college Magna Cum Laude and finished his MS with the highest honors.
In HS he took an off the beaten path literature class and AP Art History. In college he too some philosophy and film classes.
He took what he wanted, of course along with highly technical classes, and ended up in a great spot, unhindered by taking classes that weren’t math and science.
You asked whether History or English is relevant for a STEM degree, and the answer is yes, in both high school and university:
First, to get into university - no matter what subject you plan to study- the usual high school recommendations / requirements include 2-4 years of a foreign language and 4 years each of English, Social Sciences, Math, and Science (to include Physics, Chemistry & Bio). Some university systems (notably CA) also require some arts subjects.
Then, unlike most countries, every single university in the US- including CalTech and MIT- will require some English and Social Science classes as part of getting a degree, no matter what field you are studying.
So, yes they are relevant!
Given that you are in CA, though, and have those lovely UC & CS options, take a look at where the proposed classes for 10th & 11th would likely put him in admissions terms for the areas of STEM that are most likely to be interesting to him. Also, consider where the required arts credits slot in?
This course is probably not too useful for college admissions, but probably highly useful for the student to help determine how interested the student is in engineering.
Echoing what @eyemgh and @collegemom3717 have stated but I would also look up the UC approved HS designated Honors classes on the link below. Not all HS designated “Honors” classes will be weighted by the UC and Cal state system if those are target schools during the college application. This could help eliminate some courses from the list and find some alternatives.
Type in the name of the HS for the approved list. Weighted Honors courses will have the the Orange banner and star next to them.
Aside from the issue of balancing his load and keeping up with an accelerated math track, he should choose the classes that interest him, and that have the best teachers. Especially for those potentially going into STEM, high school might be the best chance for broad, life-enriching education, since college STEM ed is very focused. So if there are any AP non-STEM class that have a great teacher, he should absolutely take those.
While I fully agree with those who have said that he should take what interests him, I also want to address the question, " Is English honors course relevant for STEM degree?"
Well, whether you take honors or not isn’t so much the issue, but English is absolutely relevant for anyone seeking any college degree. One of the most useful skills to acquire in high school - no matter your intended major - is good writing. Writing is the foundation of many, many college classes - many classes require extended research papers in addition to multiple essays. There is a lot of writing in college! And that process is much less stressful and much more successful when you have developed a solid writing foundation in high school.
This is why I have always told me own daughter, if you can only learn ONE skill in high school, let it be writing. That skill will serve you well in college, no matter what you decided to study.
Agree that writing skills are highly important in any subject.
However, high school English teaches writing skills mainly in the context of analyzing fictional literature, which understandably may not be a strong interest for every student. Unfortunately, that may not be optimal for a student who would much rather write about some other subject.
Sure, not every student has the same interests. By the same token, not every student likes math, but all students need to learn fundamental math skills, not only in order to perform basic math functions, but in order to understand logical progression and sequences. A student may not enjoy fiction, but learning writing skills in the context of writing about fiction will still help them develop basic writing skills which are transferable to other topics - as they will need to do in college.
And in college they may need to write about fiction, too, whether they want to or not. As a UCB alumnus, you know UCB’s courses in Reading and Composition, which are required of freshmen and sophomores who do not AP out of them - including STEM majors (in fact, the majority of students in those classes are often STEM majors as those are the students least likely to have taken AP Eng in high school). Both semesters of those required courses are focused on writing about literature, with the additional research component in second semester.
I imagine other college have similar requirements. So a high school student has two choices, as far as I can see: Either push themselves with the AP Eng classes if available to them, or take regular English classes, but really make sure they are learning solid writing skills which they will need in college - whether in a required freshman comp course OR in other core curriculum courses and even courses in their major, which will often required written work.
Learning to write about fiction - even if you don’t particularly like lit - will still teach you how to write a coherent paragraph. You’d be surprised how many college freshman can not do that - even at UCB. And they struggle as a result. (And I say this as someone who taught both Reading and Comp as well as a breadth lecture course with several writing requirements - otherwise good students who did well on tests often watched their grades plummet on writing assignments - and it was very frequently the CS majors who had always considered writing and English comp to be irrelevant to their lives and academic needs.)
The math analog would be if math were always taught in the context of some other subject like physics or business that some students may not necessarily be interested in.
The point is that not liking high school English or not doing that well in high school English does not necessarily mean that the student does not like or is not good at writing, since the issues could be due to being less interested in or not being as good at analyzing fictional literature.
The class listing for Spring 2023 for R&C A courses lists plenty of sections on varied topics. Of course, if you want to take such a course focused on fictional literature, you can.
Yet, if you were to look at the syllabi for these courses, I wonder how many would contain a good amount of reading of fiction? Maybe not all, but most do include fiction.
And that’s not the point. The point is that strong writing skills are pretty useful to have in college, no matter what your intended major is.
Most students develop those writing skills in the context of a high school English class. Often that is what they have available to them. If they can develop those skills in another way, power to them. But if they decide not to develop those skills, or believe those skills to be irrelevant, then they may have some struggles when they reach college and are expected to be able to write essays, papers, etc.
And my last comment on this topic, because interest or lack of interest in fiction is not really the point, imo: my daughter took (high school) senior composition in the fall and I don’t think they read a single work of fiction. Their main assignments were based on grammar (a lot of worksheets on punctuation, some with analysis of parts of speech, etc) and college personal statements (those were the main writing assignments last semester). They did not read any literature per se. They focused on basic skills - in other words, the skills they will need to become competent writers. I obviously don’t know how these courses are developed at other high schools, but I am not convinced that all high school English courses are focused squarely on literary fiction. Some are, some aren’t. Most include some. But, in my opinion, the main issue is how a high school student develops the writing skills that will benefit them in college classes. In most cases, that will be through their high school English classes. They can also take DE writing classes. But my fundamental point here is that STEM majors ignore writing skills at their peril.
A substantial number of HS English classes are required to get into any college. All CA publics require 4 years. What classes one fulfills those requirements with can vary, but the debate over English period is moot. It’s required everywhere.
I guess I did a poor job in writing my original post, or maybe the folks did not read it with patience.
My post was not about whether to take English. My post was to clarify whether to take English honors. Similarly I am asking about Chem Honors, Engineering Honors, and AP History.
My son wants to take 2 honors/AP courses out of the above 4. And has trouble finding the right 2 given his interests and inclination so far. (He had no trouble deciding for accelerated math & non-honors Spanish).
This is such a personalized decision based on student strength, and also very high school based that it’s difficult to give input.
At my D’s HS, the top students took honors everything and as many AP courses as were allowed. My D used her non STEM APs to place out of her gen Ed requirements in college which was super helpful. Her STEM APs helped with the foundation of her engineering classes.
The easy one to not do honors is the engineering elective. I’d pick the other based on the strength of the teachers at your HS. Has the school guidance counselor given any input?
My kids took pretty much the hardest/highest levels of classes for two reasons. It looks good on scholarship apps and regular apps. The other or main reason was to get out of as many Gen Ed classes as possible.
How many classes should be Honors/AP is really student dependent. Top students at our HS typically take all honors/AP throughout - that has been my son’s experience thus far. At first glance, I’d suggest taking any elective as a “regular” course before taking any core subjects that way.
My kids took all honors or AP’s except for extra fillers instead of study halls, plus all but one took regular English in 11/12 because our school only offered regular or AP for those years (math kids).
That makes sense. We have honors and AP (and, of course, regular) for every subject which is lucky - S24 had to take honors US history this year as he got shut out of APUSH due to scheduling issues/over-enrollment.