Many high-achieving students see over-the-summer classes at Cuesta College as an opportunity to meet the requirements for classes like Advanced Placement Economics and Government, or take them to show colleges they’ll be applying to how dedicated they are to their subjects of choice. The benefits of starting college-level work in high school at colleges like Cuesta and Hancock can’t be denied, but even the highest performing students should be mindful when selecting potentially very difficult classes that they may not be prepared to take.
After I finished my ninth grade year I was convinced that I was destined to be the next great biologist of the 21st century, so naturally I fancied myself qualified to take a human biology course at Cuesta even though the only background knowledge I had on the subject was a class I had taken in seventh grade, where the most complicated thing I learned was “the mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell.” Needless to say, while I did scrape by, the experience is one I wish I didn’t have. Similarly minded students need to take the possibility of the same thing happening to them into consideration, and they also need to remember that the summers of high school may very well be among the last periods of prolonged free time that you’ll have in your life.
Every day I hear tales of nights bereft of sleep due to a stockpile of projects due the following day, or complaints on the incredible stress resulting from being drowned in overwhelming amounts of daily work. Every student has the opportunity to take a nice two-and-a-half long breather from this onslaught of work during summer vacation and even the most ambitious students should keep this in perspective.
I don’t mean to deter ambitious students from pursuing the knowledge they crave or from making themselves more desirable to their dream universities, but I do think it’s worth reminding them that they can have the success they’re pursuing while still enjoying the relief of a lengthy summer break. Before you pack your vacation with more loads of work, consider if you’re prepared to take on that challenge or if that’s really how you want one of your only chances for relief to be used.
