Students register for classes for the 2018-19 school year
March 1, 2018
Every spring, freshmen, sophomores, and juniors begin the process of signing up for their next year classes. On February 15th, as the seniors enjoyed a late start, the rest of the students were at BSM bright and early learning about what classes they could take in the coming years.
This year, BSM is taking a slightly different approach to class scheduling. The new program of studies lists eight different sample schedules, each with a different focus ranging from STEM, to world language, to business, to journalism. These focuses largely begin in a student’s sophomore year, so the freshmen signing up for classes have a big decision to make.
I picked my classes based on rigor because I’m trying to get into Notre Dame. I decided I needed to work hard in the hardest classes that I could choose.
Freshmen are forced to decide between many strong options. “I’m planning on taking Engineering because I want to go along a career path that involves physics and I thought that engineering could help me with that. It was kind of a difficult decision to make because so many classes popped up and I was like ‘should I do this’ or ‘should I do this?’ There were a lot of interesting options to choose from,” freshman Dmitri Houle said.
However, choosing which classes to take is still a big decision for all students. Sophomore Cecelia Braun elected to make her choices based off of her future plans. “I picked my classes based on rigor because I’m trying to get into Notre Dame. I decided I needed to work hard in the hardest classes that I could choose,” Braun said.
As students grow older, their options become more plentiful at BSM. Incoming freshmen only have leeway with one to two periods out of the eight in a day. Then, as they progress into their sophomore year, students have two to three periods that they can either choose to take a more, or less, advanced course in, or, pick a brand new elective altogether.
Once into the upperclassmen years at BSM, almost the entirety of the students’ schedules become flexible. The only required courses for students are religion, history, and English, but which specific classes they take is up to the students themselves in each of those subject areas.
English alone has over 15 options to choose from as juniors look toward their senior year. “It felt like I had more options with English this year especially. It was harder because I wanted to take so many different courses but I just didn’t have the time. It was also hard for science because there were more options than just honors for the first time, so I had more things to decide between,” junior Ellie Krueger said.
Students’ course selections are required to be completed by March 6, including getting all necessary teacher signatures, when students sign up for their classes during free hour.