Should I accept a free block my senior year?

Applying to College Admission Stories
1

Hello,

I’m currently stressing over whether I should have a free period next year. I’m a junior and I plan on going into IT as a career. I’ve taken just about every related computer and business class at my school and I will be done taking AP Microeconomics and AP Calculus AB by the end of this school year. I plan on taking AP Statistics, AP US History, AP Physics, and AP Psychology next year, sprinkled in with English 12. My dilemma is that I don’t know if colleges will look down upon my transcript once they see that I’ve taken a free block. 2 of my AP courses are on both days and count as 2 separate grades so I effectively have 6 AP classes next year and I don’t know if I can handle it. Not just that, but there aren’t any other courses offered at my school that will make me stand out and will just make it seem like I’m taking a “throwaway” class. With the extra time I plan on either finding a job or working on my coding skills (since I’ve already taken a Java class and want to work more with SQL and Python) but I still feel like it would look better if I stayed in despite the fact that I dislike all the other classes offered. Should I accept having a free period or should I just suck it up and take some useless class such as sculpturing? Thanks

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So why is a fine arts class useless? I was taking your question seriously until it deteriorated into a decision about choosing classes that make you look good ending with an odd slam for sculpture class. I think your decision about whether to have a free period should be based on how much time you have to study, be involved in ECs, and work if you have a job.

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I don’t see a point in taking sculpturing because I don’t see it benefiting what I want to do as a career. Because I want to do something with business and computers, I have taken (and enjoyed) classes such as Business and Marketing, Information Technology Fundamentals, Programming, and Microeconomics. I’ve already taken a fine art class (both photography and photo-shop) and all the other classes are things I can’t stand. I can’t draw (handwriting is a pain on its own) and it’s hard for me to express my thoughts through drawings. I have been considering getting a job. It’s just the overall combination of if it will look bad if I choose to either get a job or work on my computer skills more.