S is starting to plan out his course schedule for junior year. He has taken three years of language through sophomore year, and is wondering whether to take his 4th year of language junior year, or AP CS junior year and delay the language class until senior year.
The reason he is considering this is due to his heavy extracurricular load. He spends roughly 30-40 hours a week in 3 ECs where he competes at the national level (no we are not tiger parents–we encourage him to cut back, but he says he enjoys them and adamantly refuses). Compared to the 4th year of language, AP CS would take less time and likely result in a higher grade as well.
His other classes junior year will include AP History, AP Calc, AP Biology and Honors English. He understands that if he delays the language class for a year, he will be rusty. But senior year will be a lighter course load so he thinks he will be ok.
Other than being rusty with the language, is there any reason he should not take AP CS junior year and the language senior year?
I don’t think there’s any other con with saving the language for senior year besides becoming rusty at it, but I am curious why he can not take AP Comp Sci in senior year instead of junior year. I get that he is busy with the ECs you talked about, but he’s going to be doing that in senior year, as well, right?
If it’s not a problem, I think he should continue the language in eleventh grade, and take AP Comp Sci in senior year. Hope this helped. Let me know if you still have any questions!
Is he trying to gauge interest in CS to decide whether he wants to study CS in college?
Is there any way to practice the language if he takes a year off? E.g. does he have friends who are heritage speakers of the language where he and they are willing to speak that language to each other whenever they interact?
@anthonytheboy, it will be less busy senior year for two reasons. First, because grades are most critical junior year so he will have to put in more effort junior year vs. senior year. Second, one of the ECs, which is about 10 hours per week, effectively ends by December of senior year.
@ucbalumnus, our school only has AP CS A. He already knows Java. It would be an easy A+ for him. But it is a good point to keep him immersed. I need to think about that more.
@hebegebe Alright! Thanks for letting us know! In that case, I don’t think it’s a problem to do AP Comp Sci A in junior year. @ucbalumnus makes a very good point. Foreign news would help. Another thing I’d recommend trying is turning on the language’s subtitles in movies. I do that often with English audio for movies I am re-watching, and I find it useful in learning some new Spanish words (I am in Spanish.).
Check that his school does CS A with Java indeed and not Python (I’ve heard of Python being used in some schools).
Do prepare for the idea he may not be taking a 4th level. Indeed, senior year first semester he’ll be super busy with applications and still have his sport. Check that the universities he’s interested in don’t want a further level.
Thanks for the pointer @MYOS1634. S is pretty sure it is Java but will verify.
Re being super busy with applications first semester senior year, I will recommend to him that he finish his essays in the summer. That is the approach that D took, and she had essays completed for both early and regular admission by September. She got in early so techically the regular admission essays were a waste, but she had no regrets because senior year was pretty relaxed for her.