Advanced placement courses, better known as AP classes, are notorious for their difficulty. They include college-level material taught in high schools, consisting of rigorous coursework and culminating in comprehensive exams administered by the College Board.
As the dust settles after the intensity of AP exam season, many students feel they can rest knowing their hardest classes are pretty much over.
However, just because these AP exams are over doesn’t indicate they’re off for the rest of the school year. With some of the weight off of their shoulders, students now contemplate on how they’ll carry out the remainder of the school year.
Baruch College Campus High School offers a variety of AP classes including AP English Language and Composition (AP Lang), AP Statistics (AP Stats), AP United States History (APUSH), AP/College Calculus (AP/College Calc), AP Physics 1, AP Psychology (AP Psych), AP Spanish and AP Comparative Government and Politics (AP Gov).
Junior Junjie Lin takes three of these courses: AP Lang, APUSH and AP Stats. Now that the classes curriculums are complete, his priorities in school have taken a bit of a shift.
“I’m happy that the tests are over, it makes it easier to focus on the other classes now,” he said. “It takes a lot of stress off of my mind.”
Junior Kenny Lin, who takes the same three APs, shared that he feels classes are now winding down a bit.
“I feel relieved now that I don’t have to do tons of practice anymore, and I like being able to relax instead of cramming,” he said.
Although the exams have passed and students feel they are able to relax more, their AP classes are not truly over. Teachers continue to teach content and students still have the opportunity to delve deeper into the subjects they’ve been learning all year.
Junior Robert Chen spoke about what happens in some of these classes when exams have wrapped up.
“The workload is a lot less compared to when we were all basically cramming and stressing
before the test,” he said. “Last year when I was in [AP Environmental Science], after the exam we worked on fun projects. With this year’s final APUSH 10-page historiography, it feels like we have one last fun project to end off the class.”
Sophomore Vincient Jiang, currently taking AP Environmental Science, also known as APES, shared what him and his classmates are doing in the class these days.
“We are having projects based on environmental justice and sustainability of the environment of what the society provides,” he said over text. “They’re pretty easy if you can manage your time well.”
He also mentioned having much more free time.
“Having spare time is great,” said Jiang. “It gives you confidence and a comfort zone where you don’t have to stress about your assignments and overwork about grades.”
