When I was a senior in high school, I seriously considered taking Auto Mechanics as an elective over AP Physics. My guidance counselor and my father both recommended otherwise, particularly because I was planning on studying engineering in college. I ended up getting my degree in Statistics and Actuarial Science and eventually an MBA.
Decades later, I think the Auto Mechanics class would have served me much better and probably would have saved me many thousands of $$$.
I really wish I had had the space in my schedule and/or the inclination to have taken Wood Shop. My fabrication skills are strictly of the survival sort.
OTOH, I am very happy I took Bachelor Foods and Bachelor Living (otherwise known as Home Ec for Jocks.) That’s where I learned to cook, sew, maintain a household budget, etc.
The most popular elective at my school was Thanatology and I was not among the lucky few who got to attend. But that was out of my control and I think maybe the OP is referring to classes we regret not choosing to take (?)
If so, I wish I would have taken Spanish instead of French. Would be so much more useful.
I definitely would have taken auto shop and/or wood shop. We also had a jewelry making class as an Arts elective. That would have been fun. Unfortunately my folks would not let me take anything that did not directly look good on a college application. I even had to lobby hard to convince them that being on the school newspaper looked good to colleges, because they didn’t think it was “academic” enough and I could be taking something better.
My school had very few electives to start with, and the courses which were considered “college prep” were pretty much limited to single sections. My entire high school curriculum was virtually locked in the day I walked in as a freshman.
In college, I was given the choice of college algebra or Math for human affairs (aka math for human idiots). College algebra was just a review of what I learned in 2-1/2 years of high school algebra and gave me no advantages in life. I wish I had had a better grasp on balancing a checkbook when I was first out in the world.
Typing. For some reason back then (early 70s) it simply wasn’t allowed for College Prep students to take that or any of the other “Business” classes. And don’t get me started on things like Home Ec - both my High Schools sucked like that. I am hunt-and-peck self taught and because Al Gore invented the internet I got pretty fast at it. But having to do a lot of papers and paperwork I wish I had learned the correct way to do it.
I know what you mean. I used the word “recommended” loosely in the OP, at least with respect to my dad.
I wish I had tried out for sports. I was a ballet dancer (not at school). I think I would’ve been good at a couple of sports. I am tall, so maybe basketball. My dance instruction forbade us taking sports, too much chance of injury.
There were many electives I would’ve liked to take, but there were only so many hours in the school day, and college prep took most of them. I never had a study hall. My electives were chorus and the school paper. I took typing in summer school.
I wish I could’ve taken Spanish, art, drama, orchestra. I would’ve benefited from a shop or mechanics class, but probably would not have taken it at that time.
We had a meat processing elective that I really wanted to take unfortunately it took two periods so I would have had to lose an AP class to take it. I have no doubt I made the right decision but learning how to butcher whole cows, pigs and chicken would have been a ton of fun if not a useful every day skill.
I more regret the classes I did take than those I didn’t.
We only needed 1 credit of math. (graduated HS in '79). No way should I have taken 2 years of algebra and advanced algebra. I have never used it, didn’t even need it for the colleges I went to, and an A+ in general arithmetic would probably have looked better on my record than the C’s I got in those algebra classes anyway.
Should have just taken Physical Science and Earth Science. Only needed 2 science credits and my college degrees are in Criminal Justice fields. I did not need to take Chemistry and Weighted (advanced) Biology. Instead I graduated with 4 credits in sciences including a D+ (:smack: ) in that weighted biology class.
I took Electricity Survey and Intro to Electronics my first year. Those classes were way over the head for a freshman and as you can imagine some of what they taught in 1975 became quite obsolete just a decade or so later.
My Bachelor is in Sociology with an emphasis in criminal justice. Taking sociology and sociology 2 in HS only made some of my college course work even duller than it already was due to repetition.
In other words, I could have boneheaded it all through high school, had less work to do, more fun, better grades, and I’d still be where I am today.
Of course, I never ever told my kids any of that! 
Wish I had taken a more useful language than Latin. French, in hindsight, since my wife and her family are native French speakers.
That’s funny. I was in school about the same time, and were were pretty much expected to take typing if we were in the college bound track.
Yep. It wasn’t a requirement but advisors pushed it heavily. I wasn’t exactly college bound as I intended to go into the service after HS and eventually didn’t start any college until 4 years after graduation and was already in my career field.
Typing was the most beneficial class I ever took in HS. Holy cow, I can’t imagine typing pages and pages at less than my still humble touch typing speed.
I’ve worked with people who are damn near handicapped by their inability to type. But when the threshold for the typing test is something or 35 wpm, they pass even though they have to look for every letter.
I wish I had taken Art. I never did, because I was already an excellent artist, and judging by the work of those who took it, I’d never learn anything from the class. But if I had taken it, I would have been admitted into the Yale School of Architecture. No art class was their reason for not accepting me.
I wasn’t involved in the school paper, in middle school or high school, even though I was very interested in writing and went on to get a degree in journalism. All of my non-band friends were on the paper - they WERE the paper - and I have no idea how I managed to completely avoid being a part of it.
Could be midwest vs PA suburbs or something. I remember parents around the time I was in fighting it with the school board. It got changed in the huge district not long after I graduated; I don’t know if the basic-simply-large one ever did change — I assume they did.
The argument was, as i recall, that anyone smart enough to make college was smart enough to figure out how to type and that all their time was needed to give us the strongest footing possible in science and math. Considering my degrees ended up being education and psychology I could have used the typing a whole lot more.
My wife was Catholic Girls School and they had a class track that combined both; strong core classes plus typing and shorthand or anything else you wanted. Most of my term papers were dictated to her and then she typed them up. One of the 147 reasons I loved her from the first. 
I do about 35-40 using my four-fingers-and-a-thumb method but the wife went on to become a legal secretary/paralegal and her speed is silly – something like 120 after corrections last time she was tested (ages ago)? I still will cheat and use dictation and her hands for some particularly involved papers.
Typing! and computer programming. I messed around with BASIC , a bit of COBOL and Fortran as my buddies were hard core nerds, but I somehow never took a shine to it. Even though they would have limited use now it would have opened the door to Python and C # which I could still use now for my side projects and work.
Outdoor Living, wood shop and Home Ec were ones I was very glad I took. I still use stuff I learned there.