(I don’t mean for this post to come off as “bragging” but I need some non-bias views on my issue) Here’s a life story thus far -warning, this is super long-:
So starting from middle school, my school pushes the students near past their limits. I took Algebra 1 in 6th grade (without even knowing what algebra was in 5th grade) and continued on through middle school taking unnecessary classes. Freshman year, I continued attending my K-12 charter school and took the following classes: English 1 Honors, Project Lead the Way Biomedical Sciences, Spanish 2, AP Chemistry, Soccer, PreCal, and APUSH (I also managed to fit in a lot of extra curriculars -except anything music related because that’s not my forté).
Anyways, I am transferring schools and now I have more freedom when it comes to classes. I am no longer pressured to take classes that do not suite me (I completely and utterly hated Chemistry especially). Being part of the Biomed program also was not suiting, as the teacher did not make it enjoyable.
For my sophomore year, I am taking the following:
English 2 Honors
AP Calculus AB
AP World History
French 1
AP Capstone Seminar
AP Biology
Marketing Essentials
(It’s a heavy load, but I think I’d genuinely enjoy these classes- maybe except math, but there are no other math classes I could take).
With my classes (and my various EC) in mind, I was told that I could be given an opportunity to graduate early. But I do not think that is a smart idea for me personally.
I still don’t know what career path I want to take, so that is why I switched to Marketing rather than Biomed (all I know is that the medical field is something I am not interested in, as I had some bad experiences volunteering at a hospital).
I have worked immensely hard to manage a 4.8 weighted and 4.0 unweighted GPA up until now (the summer to sophomore year).
My entire family (besides my mother and father) lives in Japan. I have uncles and grandparents that have great connections to popular businesses and work alongside people with lots of experience in business.
Question: do you think it would be a good idea to, for my senior year in high school, take online classes and live/work/intern in Japan for a year? I’ll have a lot of my living expenses covered, I can gain lots of experience through going to work with my relatives, and I can still do school/work in Japan (I mentioned all of my classes to show that senior year won’t be packed with classes, as I have already taken a lot of the rigorous classes already).
Like I said before, I do not know what I want to do as far as career goes, so getting some hands on work seems like fun. The only major issue is, Japan is not a country where students (especially high schoolers) are volunteering or interning. To my relatives, the fact that I volunteer at a hospital is absurd. I know that my relatives in the business field are willing to take me in and help me, but it’s a rarity. I need to start saving up if I want to do this, since it would only be 2 years from now, so please give me some advice. What do you think I should you?
I would much rather do this than take 3 mandatory classes and then another 4 AP’s I do not care for. Dual enrollment is also not an option because I am planning to go out of state for college, so it would kind of be a waste of credits.