As the school year is coming to an end, students are beginning to choose classes for the upcoming year. Though most core classes will remain the same, Canyon Hills is trying their hardest to introduce more options to give students the opportunity to take new and exciting courses that will help guide them in their future.
Guidance counselor, Nick Stewart, has been working at the school since 2018, coming up on his seventh year of supporting incoming students and preparing them for their high school years.
“My goal as a counselor is to give opportunities to students to see what they’re interested in and to try something new,” Stewart shares.
Courses expand beyond the A-G requirements, giving students the classes needed in order to graduate, while going beyond in their interests. Completing their pathways, creating a resume, and working on college applications all start by choosing the courses for your upcoming years.
Canyon Hills sophomore, Elissa Gould, shares her favorite course of the year saying, “This year, my favorite has to be tech theater. The learning of different things like lighting and sewing, it’s all very fun.” When asked about the future, she explains, “I would most definitely be interested in taking another tech theater class, or something that is correlated with something I learned from the class.”
With the wide variety of choices, students can get an idea of what they want to major in and possibly what they want to pursue in the future. Journalism is a great example of an elective that gives both freedom and direction of what students may need in high school. It provides hands-on experience in writing articles for the school newspaper as well as learning the basics of how to write efficiently. Although, journalism is not the only course that does so.
Stewart expands on the new additions to the course options explaining, “This was the first year we offered Green Construction for woodshop, so we will be offering the second year course, Building Scaled Structures,” as well as “Black History/Personal Growth” which will also be offered this upcoming year.
New college classes are even being introduced such as “Introduction to Kinesiology/Nutrition,” which will hopefully provide students with more freedom in their courses. The school year of 2024-2025 had a lot of new additions so not too much will be going away, but there is still a wide range of options. Canyon Hills wants to continue the variety of courses offered to encourage students to step out into new territories and spread their range of interest.
