Being a student at Mount Vernon, we see a lot of students who thrive on the variety of courses offered, but do they thrive on classes that are required to graduate?

At Mount Vernon, students are required to take four years of English, three years of social studies, three years of science, and three years of math. 

While many students may see required classes as useless, these requirements can allow students to be more fluent and successful in many aspects of life and prepare all students for college, even if that is not their planned path when they are freshmen. 

While a 14-year old may not understand the value of English classes, being in English classes for four years can improve a student’s mastery skills in writing, reading, communication, and critical thinking skills. Circling into real life situations, the required classes for English that students deem as useless can be used in everyday professional communication in emails, reports, and proposals. These skills can be used in other classes and help students with deep understanding and motivates them to engage in informed, evidence based discussions. 

As for math, science, and social studies, these other required classes help build key and foundational skills in situational decision making, analytical thinking, and how to interpret data and contexts. The ability to learn these skills can also help students in the real world with their future

However, a portion of students disagree with classes needed for graduation because of the irrelevancy to their future career goals, unnecessary stress, and lack of content that isn’t intriguing. 

Though some students have their futures set on being farmers, going to trade school, or are wanting to go into the army, the knowledge they gain with core classes can increase communication with confidence, critical analysis used in everyday life to determine a solution, and financial literacy skills needed for things such as taxes. 

As a solution, Mount Vernon High School can change the requirements for classes by asking kids what they want to do in the future and working from there. If somebody wants to be a farmer and not be in school, I would say they can take online classes of these classes so that they can go work on the farm. Online course classes can give a student flexibility to work at their own pace and customize their schedule that works best for them. Even though you’re learning differently by doing school on a computer, it also gives you a chance to graduate earlier. 

For other students that don’t find the reason for required classes, they can take summer courses to get the credits they need but just alternative courses that they would like to do in their near future. 

The requirements needed to graduate may not be a fun path, but these courses will help us students immensely with necessary skills to be successful in our upcoming careers.