What would/have you do/done when your school doesn't offer a class you want?

Pre-College Issues High School Life
1

If your school didn’t offer a class that you wanted to take like AP Physics C and only offered AP Phys 1 and 2 what would you do? Would you just self study it? Would you pay to take the college equivalent of it at a local college (either short drive to expensive prestigious university or LONG drive to community college)? Would you just give up and take other classes instead? I’m taking AP phys 1 and 2 next year (will be a junior) but I’m not sure what to do after that since it’s pretty far down the road. My senior years gonna have a lot of open space in the schedule because what I did as a sophomore so I can either just leave those spaces empty and go home early or come in late, put in 2-3 challenging classes I don’t have any interest in whatsoever which would make senior me very angry (leading to hulk-like tendencies), or find somewhere that teaches Physics C. Senior year I have to take Calc 3 at NCSU anyway (my school has a deal with them for that class in particular) so I was going to take any other classes I wanted there since I’m there anyway until I saw how much they charged (who knew college was expensive…). I’ve almost completely ruled out self-study because I know deep down that if I tried to self study for anything I would spent 9/10 of the year playing rocket league in my self-study time and learning the game physics that lead to a perfect aerial rather than whatever Physics C is. Should I make an extra money stash hole in my mattress to start saving for Physics C, just not take it, or another option that I’m completely overseeing that would solve all of my problems?

*No matter what I’m going into some kind of engineering (which type I will decide the night before admissions are due) so I will need to take either AP Physics C or the college equivalent eventually. If I wait for actual college admissions the class might be free or way cheaper from financial aid, but if I try to use financial aid BEFORE I’m admitted into any college it will apparently (according to my brother and my interpretation of some college websites) lower the amount I get when I’m actually in college.

2

If your school has a deal with NCSU, don’t they cover the fees for dual enrollment?
What about the nearby college?
What about trying to join a research team there, BTW?

Senior year, you need to have English, Math, Science, Social Science, and Foreign Language (unless you already reached level 4). You could take Science and Math at the college, English and Social science at the HS, and take Late Arrival/Early release for an internship or job. Participating in clubs (robotics, etc) is highly recommended obviously.

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@MYOS1634 Foreign language is online for me so I don’t need to worry about school time for that, but Math is definitely at NCSU, and civics and english are at school (and this STEM capstone thing I need to do). I start with robotics in a couple of months actually and I’m starting my own club and staying on swim team etc. for the next 2 years. My largest issue is that I don’t know anyone that has taken AP Physics C from my school before (not to say nobody has I just wouldn’t know them) so I’m unclear about the process. Also I’ve heard stuff about joining research teams before but I don’t really know what that is and how it works. Can you please explain to me how research teams work (for my level)?

4

Any classes that I couldn’t take at high school, I tried to take at my local JC. Here in CA, the JC’s were free to HS students that could spend the time to take the classes. Try and make each opportunity count.

5

At my kid’s HS, if you are a senior and couldn’t fit AP Physics C, AP Calc BC or AP Stats (or any other AP that wasn’t offered) into your schedule, the school would offer to let you take Period 1 or Period 6 off so that you could take the equivalent class at the local junior college. These were all school-district elective classes, so not a big deal to take them elsewhere. In our case, the junior college was an even closer drive than the HS. And as the previous poster mentioned, in California the classes in CC are free of charge, for HS students.