Hello, I’ve been a lurker on this site for a while now without much reason to post, but I am curious as to what advice I can get for my junior year schedule, as I’m having a difficult time deciding what I want to do.
First, a bit of background: I’m a Sophomore at a relatively competitive California (LA area) public high school. My dream school is Berkeley (dream school for a reason lol) ,Freshman year I took a basic advanced freshman schedule (H English, H Bio, H int 2, etc) and received all A’s. Sophomore year has definitely been a bit more of a struggle, I took all honors again and made the decision to take AP Chemistry without any previous chemistry (dumb decision looking back on it) and got my first B, not a huge deal, just something to consider.
I’m not really 100% sure what I want to major in for college but I do know I want it to be STEM-related. Cognitive Science has been on my radar lately, so I am inclined to take AP Psychology. The root of the struggle is the decision between taking AP Seminar or AP Psychology. In my school, AP Seminar is one of the best-taught classes in the school and is generally known to have the best teachers, that said, the class is very time-consuming. In theory, I could take both Seminar and Psychology but that would amount to six AP classes and I don’t know if I could handle that, especially considering AP Chemistry. My school has the 0-period schedule, so taking seven classes means an hour and a half less of sleep, which has been another struggle in my head. I have a 0 period this year, and it hasn’t been too taxing so far; however, considering my schedule isn’t as difficult as it would be next year, I might really appreciate the extra sleep next year. If it helps, I’ll include my four-year plan below
9th: H Bio, H English, H Integrated 2, Spanish 1, Health/CCP, PE
10th: AP Chemistry, H English, H Integrated 3, H World History, Spanish 2, Fitness, Photography
10th Summer: H Pre-Calc
11th: APUSH, AP Lang, AP Phys 1 or C, AP Calc, H Span 3, AP Psych or AP Seminar (both?)
12th: AP Gov/Econ, AP Bio or APES, AP Stats, AP Span, AP Lit, AP Research? or Comp Sci if no research.
Something else to mention: My school doesn’t have honors for any classes above Sophomore year (with the exception of Spanish) so it would either be Regular or AP. I can’t drop to regular for any of my core subjects as I’ve already started through the honors track.
A part of me feels as if I should just bite the bullet and take both, but I am a very social person and spend a lot of time out of the house, and I don’t think I would have the same amount of time if I took all of these classes.
Advice?