Hello, I’m an 8th grader and we’re picking classes next week. I don’t know what to do, as the whole process is new. Any tips? The amount of classes seems overwhelming and I can’t decide. Should I pick anything close to my major? (Which I’ve not decided as I’m in 8th grade.) Any help would be appreciated.
The amount of choices that you will have as a HS freshman is bound to be severely limited by school policy. You will undoubtedly have to enroll in English, match, science, social science, and foreign language. Beyond that, it depends on the school, which none of us is familiar with.
I agree with @skieurope. Just don’t overload with the idea of all honors because it will take time to make the adjustment. For me, some teachers gave a lot of work the first unit to weed out the truly committed learners of whatever you want to call them. I would say definitely take a Honors English, Math, and Foreign Language. Good luck! The number of classes that are available during scheduling for sophomore year is 5x as much as freshman. Just get some grad requirements out if you can (Info Tech, Speech at my school).
Make sure that you have, each year (and regardless of graduation requirements, which are different from what Top 50 universities and LACs want for admission) 1 unit each of English, Math, Science, Social Science, and Foreign Language. Take those at the Honors Level if you can, otherwise take College Prep or Regular. Then, you should have one or two other choices. Pick one class you find inherently interesting (ie., you can’t wait to take that and figure out what it’s about). You may have to take Health, Physical Education, Art, or other classes.
If you’re an excellent student and love learning, you can see if your high school offers AP Human Geography: it’s an “intro” class to ease students into the rigors of the AP curriculum and is often taken by freshmen, for whom it has been shown to be very beneficial (in developing writing skills critical thinking, etc).