Photo courtesy of senior Kai Winstead-LeRoy

  With summer rapidly approaching, students at San Luis Obispo High School are applying for summer learning opportunities through Cuesta Community College and SLOHS summer school programs. 

Students have the opportunity to take classes over summer and earn credits for high school and college. This can be an easy way to prepare for future courses and advance academic goals. 

“I have taken four summer courses and seven other Cuesta classes during the year. I took several music appreciation classes as well as physics, social psychology, and marine bio to name a few,” said senior Isabelle Preston.

While it is uncommon to take this many classes, even taking a couple classes can help lighten future loads. Most students who take summer classes will only take one or two classes.

“I did a geometry class in the summer before freshman year so that I could get a year ahead in math,” said junior Mary Zawalick.

Another reason that people take summer courses is to avoid the stressful workload during the school year. Some classes can be significantly easier than a full year long class.

 “I took an online U.S. Government class at Cuesta last year. Honestly, I just wanted to take an easy class. I didn’t even really learn anything. It was great,” said senior Lucas Murphy.

Being able to fulfill the general education (GE’s) requirements for college as a high school student takes pressure off of students and allows them to focus on other aspects of college be it their major or outside interests. Cuesta college offers the  Intersegmental General Education Transfer Curriculum or IGETC program which allows students to take classes in order to fulfill their lower level general education requirements at most universities. 

“The classes I’ve taken are primarily the classes that are required to fill out the IGETC program, which is basically the GE’s that many colleges require. So I started doing them just to get some of my classes out of the way so I could have more space for other classes in college. Now I have one more class to complete it before I’m hopefully able to have some of my GE’s done before college,” said Preston.

For underclassmen looking to fulfill credits for college or even upperclassmen looking to just coast through the year, taking courses over summer can be beneficial.