Honors or Regular Chemistry?

Pre-College Issues High School Life
1

<p>Hi there! I shall officially become a junior in high school in a little less than two weeks, and as I've been trying to ignore the horrid, squelchy feeling of alternating terror and joy that has been occupying the place where my stomach used to reside for the past few weeks, a question came to me: Should I really have signed up for Honors Chemistry?</p>

<p>See, while I'm an above-average student and consider myself at least okay in all academic areas, science is definitely my weak point. In both freshman and sophomore year I took honors science courses (Biology and Physical Science (basically, basic physics + basic chem) respectively) and received a B in each. </p>

<p>I'm not planning on going into any sort of science-intensive program post-high school. I was thinking more along the lines of something history or art related. I'm almost definitely dropping science my senior year, to free me up for more history and art classes. </p>

<p>I know the teacher who I think will be teaching the chemistry classes next year at my school. He was my Physical Science teacher, and I like him, but he is a hard grader and does actually expect honors level work from his honors students. (GASP) I regularly brought home Cs and Ds on tests and especially lab reports. Physical Science wasn't a horribly straining class or anything, but then again, it was directed towards freshmen. I was the lone sophomore, which is a long story, and this story is already getting too long.</p>

<p>So anyway, if you're still here after my background-info spew, should I drop down into CP (college-prep) level Chemistry instead of going Honors? This year will be my first experience with an AP level class (APUSH), so I don't know how rigorous it will be (especially with a full schedule), but I feel like Honors Chemistry alone will definitely take a large amount of work. I don't mind it as long as I can pull a B without going insane or losing time for my other classes or myself, but if my grade will dip below that, I just don't feel like honors is worth the extra effort considering my level of interest. I don't actually care enough about science to get deep into it post high school level, so should I bother with honors? Will the colleges I'm considering (pretty much public schools in CT and IN, and they all have an average 60-70% acceptance rate) care if I drop down? Will I still end up decently prepared for general college science courses (as in, the types you'd have to take as a history or art major)? How hard did you feel Honors Chem was, if you took it?</p>

<p>Thanks in advance, sorry for the word vomit, have a lovely day!</p>

<p>-Jen</p>

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<p>This is sort of a difficult question to answer, because:
a) I don’t think you should pick your classes on the basis of the grade you think you’ll get, but you don’t want your GPA to get too low either.
b) You should challenge yourself, but you shouldn’t take a class that will be incomprehensible or too difficult.</p>

<p>What did you think of your previous honors science classes? Did you learn a lot, or were you confused a lot of the time? Do you think you benefited from them being honors classes in ways you wouldn’t have benefited from a regular class? If you took Honors Chem, what could you do differently this time to avoid getting Cs and Ds on lab reports?</p>

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<p>Thank you for the answer, halcyonheather! I appreciate it.</p>

<p>The biggest reason I don’t want my grade to go below a B isn’t because I actually mind much, it’s more because my mom will flip out, and I’d rather she didn’t. I know I won’t get below a C, but my mom’s the type that gets mad if she sees one on so much as a progress report. The other half of it is because of what colleges will think of it.</p>

<p>I muddled my way through bits of both Biology and Physical Science, but for the most part understood what was going on. It wasn’t a breeze, but it wasn’t a bad challenge, either. I’ve never taken a non-honors science class, so I can’t really compare the two in terms of what I got out of them. All the knowledge tends to mind-dump itself over the summer anyway, haha.</p>

<p>I’m awful at conclusions when writing lab reports. The answer I get to the question is just always horribly wrong, somehow, even though I’m working with the same data as my lab partners who get it right. I’m not sure how to fix that, since that seems to me to be a glitch in how my brain approaches the situation at hand.</p>

<p>Thanks again. The more I’m thinking about it since I posted, the more I’m learning towards going ahead and plowing through it. What can it hurt, really? </p>

<p>Have a lovely far-too-early AM!</p>

<p>-Jen</p>