I’ve been trying to decide for the past two weeks on which electives I should take. I am only able to choose up to two of them. Tell me what you think. Of the electives are:
Business English
Understand the Law
Business Math
Consumer Math
Geomerty III
Health Science
Psychology
U.S. Geography
Spanish I
Acounting I or II
Admin. Office Procedures
Business Management
Entrepreneurship
Introduction to Business
Introduction to Marketing
Introduction to Selling
Keyboarding/Typing
Merchandising
Fundamental Carpentry
Plumbing
Sheet Metal
However, my mother wants me to take Geomerty III and Psychology, and my father is begging for me to take Business Enlgish and Business Math!
If Business English is anything like Business Communication at my school you would be wasting your time. Same with keyboarding (I assume you can type).
Consider Psychology (I liked it when I took it in high school) and plumbing (I should take a course like that, since I consider myself the master of clogging).
Take Psychology and Entrepreneurship. Psychology is interesting, fun and you can have fun analyzing your friends (and enemies). Entrepreneurship is not a class I’ve ever taken, but it sounds like it’d be interesting. I’m probably wrong, but it sounds like it’d have stuff about developing initiative and suchlike.
Runnerups: Fundamental Carpentry and U.S Geography.
A lot of it would depend on what kind of school I was in, how far along I was, what classes I’d already taken, what classes I still had to take, and what I wanted to be when I grew up. Personally, if it were me, I would take psychology and Spanish.
Oh, that’s not on the list. Take “sheet metal” instead.
Actually, take keyboard/typing if you are not up to speed (as it were) on the venerable input device. Increasing your ability to communicate with the old 'puter is a prime career benefit in today’s world. Past that, hie thee unto art. If you encourage no artistic inclinations now, you’ll (most likely) not do so later. If you gain such things now, I promise that you shall never be likely to abandon them later.
Learn to play a musical instrument, write stories or poetry, throw pots, any craft … whatever puts your heart at ease. Learn to pipe a house or facility. The threading of fittings that do not leak is one of life’s great satisfactions. Figure out how to bend sheet metal, it matters not. The ability to project, successfully executed, geometrically aligned 3-D patterns upon a sheet of pliable metal is a heckuva rewarding task.
Learn Spanish. Better yet, go to Mexico and learn to prepare Mexican food. (I’ll gladly give you worthwhile online lessons.) Take these chances now while they are easily absorbed. Most other items listed on your agenda can be learned anytime during your life. Wait not. Go out and seize the day. It awaits explicitly for you.
Learn entrepreneurship when you are finally ready to begin a business. Right now, your mind must be decided towards production or reproduction. Create and be productive. Make up your own world. Synthesize reality. Gain the upper hand upon the universe. Call me a loony but do your best to attain escape velocity.
If Enterpreneurship is a class that covers the nuts-and-bolts issues of starting and running a business, then I would I recommend it if you’re at all interested in ever founding a company. The actual process of building a company up from scratch is insanely complicated; there are lots of details that most people aren’t even aware of. A class in it will make you much better prepared.
Most people I know agree that Business Math and Consumer Math are a waste of time for people who already have a good handle on high school math.
Electives?! Those ain’t no stinkin’ electives! I second Zenster and reccommend ART or the closest you can get. Now go have fun getting dirty and hanging out with the weirdo art people.
I’m going to go with Plumbing–if you can do some basic Plumbing it could save you some money some day (unless, of course, you learn just enough to make a small problem worse).
If you don’t go with Plumbing, and can’t touch-type, go with Typing.
I’d go with either Accounting I - it will help you deal with your own finances later in life - or Spanish I - Spanish is becoming a key skill to have.
Then probably Plumbing. A handy skill to have, really.
Or just look at what sounds interesting, and like something you’ll enjoy. You never know when what you choose seemingly randomly will become what you want to do with your life.
Take psych… I loved the psych classes I took. Didn’t have a lot of fun with Spanish and I can not type they way they teach you! Anything prefaces with Business is usually not worth the effort so nix the buisness math and business english. The merchandising class sounds vaguely interesting. I did spend too much time in retail shiver Fundamental carpentry or Plumbing would probably be very useful down the road. Even if you don’t use the skills often you would always know when someone had done the job right for you (or not!)
I found Spanish to be very easy for me, but if you don’t plan to become fluent or visit a Spanish-speaking country, you won’t get much out of it two years later.
As someone with a business degree, I’d skip most of those business electives. I took accounting I and II (required) and hated every minute of them. Didn’t learn a thing that was useful in the real world (since I obviously wasn’t going to be an accountant).
Typing is very useful if you don’t already know how to do it, but it looks as if you do. I enjoyed psychology a lot. Actually, marketing is a lot like applied psychology. You can’t sell to people if you don’t understand them.
The plumbing and carpentry classes will probably be the most useful in the real world. Seriously. Because neither my husband nor I knew anything about plumbing, it took us quite a while to install a new kitchen sink.
My choices: typing (or psychology if you already can type) and either plumbing or carpentry. Plumbing is messier, but carpentry causes more pain. Besides, a physically active class can break up the monotony of lecture classes.
I’ve never heard of a “pulmonologist” but I’ll assume it has something to do with the heart. Something called “Health Science” is not going to have much that is useful, because it’s going to be much much too general to go into specifics. You’ll spend a week getting vague generalizations about nutrition and a week getting vague generalizations about drugs (anti, of course) and a week getting vague generalizations about cancer, etc. Wait until you can take a regular biology course.
I agree with Kat. A couple of my friends took “Health Science” at my school and found it to be a complete waste of time and money. If you’re looking for an easy A though, this is probably the way to go.
If your degree requires you have a few semesters of a foreign language, I think you should go ahead and get it started now. Don’t put it off until the very end, when you’re also taking the hardest classes withing your major in order to graduate on time.
Pulmonologist are people who deal with the respiratory system. Not so much of the heart. Heart doctors are cardiologist. And, yes, it is for Highschool. But, since I have to do pre-med, wouldn’t Health Science come in a bit handy then?
“Health Science” sounds like what was just called “health” at my high school - your school could be different. The best way to find out is to get a description of the class or talk to someone who’s taken it.
If it’s as described earlier - anti-drug, birth control and the like, it probably won’t do you a lot of good heading into a pre-med situation. Instead, Biology, Chemistry and advanced math will do you the most good - I ended up not going pre-med partly because I didn’t have the high school math and science background to even keep up with what was going on in my college classes (I don’t regret it, not really - I’m happier where I am now).
If the description is a focus on the sciences rather than on general health information, “health science” may be helpful - but if it’s offered as a general elective, it’s probably not as helpful as other classes will be.