How Much is Too Much?

With the time to choose the next school year's classes quickly approaching, students are often faced with vital decisions. Questions often surface and the necessity to find answers become dire. What classes should I take? How hard is AP Chemistry? Should I take the honors or AP level of a course? Most the time, choosing your courses for the next year can be a tremendous hassle.

It is incredibly important to formulate the classes one is going to take on their future career. If one wants to become an engineer, it might be helpful to take an engineering course. Yet, what if that engineering course is not weighted? Questions once again become incredibly pressing. As high school students hope to be admitted into good universities, the competition to earn the highest GPA possible becomes a large part of the high school experience. Many people might decide to take course that are weighted simply to have higher GPA's and often times cannot handle the workload. So, should one decide to take as many AP classes as possible and risk lower grades across them, or take enough of them as to be successful in each? The answer often depends on the abilities of a person and the search to find a balance is evident.

If a student can handle taking many high level courses and still do well in all of them, then they probably have a a balanced schedule fit for them. Unfortunately, this "balance" is different for every person. If you are barely getting any sleep at night because of an overload of homework, then they might want to reconsider the current classes being taken. Sleep is vital for your health and one's overall productivity during the day so it important to take classes that allow for a reasonable amount of sleep at night.  

Creating a balanced schedule for yourself is important. I feel that students should only take the AP level of that course if they feel capable of being successful in it. As vital as it is to challenge yourself and reach for the highest GPA possible, it is always nice to remind oneself that they only go to high school once, and if all you do is overwork, then you are not fully "living". If one feels that an AP class might be too much, then then perhaps an honors class is a great way to still challenge oneself as well as getting the weighted credit.