Currently I am a junior at RHS and as I’ve been progressing through my classes since freshman year, I’ve noticed something that keeps occuring. There is a lot of persuasion to get students to take AP classes so they can try to get into great colleges.

There are flyers, people visiting from different colleges and surveys about AP Classes, all designed to motivate students to try for the college track.

The school’s mission statement centers around preparing “every student for post-secondary education.” But, when high school glorifies college so much, it reaches a point where it feels like a student has no future if they do not attend one.

However, college is not always necessary to be successful in your adult years. Don’t get me wrong, college is a great experience for many people.

It provides many opportunities, allows students to meet amazing people, attend parties and gain new experiences.

While I do agree that we should be prepared for college, we should not take away from class time that should be spent actually learning to take a meaningless survey about college as we are for the Equal Opportunity School survey.

In addition, AP classes in high school shouldn’t be seen as the best and most useful classes on campus. Most AP classes are not very useful at higher levels, unless you want to be in a certain major that requires those skills.

The most useful classes are those like Government and Economics and technology classes, because you are actually taught material that will really affect your life.

Higher level math and English classes are meaningless unless you want to chase a career that requires those skills.

For most career paths in life, classes like Integrated Math 2 and English 10 should be enough to prepare students with a basic understanding of the material.

College shouldn’t be seen as the only way out. There are always alternatives for people to do after they graduate, or even before.

There are high paying labor jobs that some people really enjoy doing or students can attend trade school, which can be a really good investment.

Vocational schools are forced into the shadow of the colleges and universities that high schools seem to glorify so heavily.

But trade schools are great for people that love hands-on experiences for certain jobs, like graphic designing and culinary.

Trade school is also fairly cheap compared to universities and students graduating a technical school are way less likely to accrue a large debt.

Only certain careers, like those in the law or medicine field require that specific degree from the traditional college track.

Students can prefer labor or social media jobs, or anything else that will not call for a college degree.

High schools should work towards preparing their students for the real world, with universally important skills.

Classes in subjects like parenting, money management, or something that fights the major issues in society today.

Students need to be more prepared to face the real world, rather than hiding into more classes after they get their diploma.