With FC initiating new school courses, students have been given a list of classes to choose from for the following year. Many of the courses being offered next year include Zoology, AP Biology, Chinese III and AP European history. Each student is asked to turn in their forms as soon as possible in order to set up next year’s available courses.

Principal Todd Bennett feels that the lists are a great way to prepare the courses for next year.

“We want to give our students every opportunity to take the courses that they want in order to get into the colleges and fields of study that they are interested in,” Bennett said. “We put these things on the request list to see if there are any interests, because it all depends on whether or not there are enough kids to justify forming the class.”

By adding Zoology as another science class, Bennett feels that it will help build FC’s science department.

“We really want to build our science department,” Bennett said. “Since so many students are interested in Zoology, we are offering it in next year’s course.”

Since Zoology is a lab course, science teacher Jennifer Oren feels that students should take a course of Zoology if they are interested in any life science course.

“Zoology is a very hands-on science class,” Oren said. “Students who are interested in life science, Biology, and maybe going into any kind of medical profession, or anything that would have to do with the human body, should take this course; a course in Zoology would really help them be successful in their college classes.”

Oren recommends that students interested in Zoology should already have completed a course in Biology.

“It’s recommended that students already have taken Biology,” Oren said. “That gives them a chance to take Biology as a freshman, Zoology as a sophomore, junior or senior, and they can push back chemistry if they are not as strong in abstract thinking.”

Junior Jason Kim plans to take AP Biology next year in hopes of passing AP test at the end of the year.

“I’m taking AP Biology next year so that I can take the AP Biology test at the end of the course,” Kim said. “Then I won’t have to take it in college if I pass the test.”

Chinese teacher Dan Harris will be offering Chinese III next year in order to give his students an opportunity to pursue their language aspirations.

“The students who started with Chinese I last year, will have completed Chinese II this school year; and it’s only natural that if they want to continue to pursue their foreign language aspirations, that there would be a Chinese III offered to them,” Harris said. “A lot of colleges really appreciate when a student has done more than just two years of a foreign language.”

Students interested in taking Chinese III must meet the requirements Harris has issued in order to take the class next year.

“You would need to have completed Chinese II with a passing grade or the equivalent thereof,” Harris said. “So if a student transferred in and had taken Chinese II somewhere else, or had done an unaccredited program somewhere else and by interview and test I could see that they were ready to be in the class, then they could be in Chinese III as well.”

Sophomore Matt Ely plans to take Chinese III next year in hopes of becoming more fluent in Mandarin.

“If I go onto Chinese III I’ll become more fluent in Chinese,” Ely said. “I take Chinese because it’s a unique language; it’s different from Spanish, French or German, and it’s completely new to me.”

History teacher Jordana Siebert will be teaching AP European history next year to further cover more of Europe’s history.

“I’m offering AP European history because we only get to spend a little bit of time in European history during World history,” Siebert said. “There is so much that happens in European history that we don’t even mention. Since it’s an AP course it obviously goes into more depth than World history, and it’s focused on European history, so I think it would just be another way to learn something.”

Despite the difficulties of a college course, Siebert believes that taking AP Europe is well worth it.

“Students need to have a teacher recommendation to get into the course while maintaining a B or higher in the class,” Siebert said. “It’s very rigorous, and so there is a lot expected from them, but I think that it will be well worth it.”

Junior Tyler Laird likes taking new classes in hopes of learning new subjects.

“I want to overload my schedule next year with classes that may be helpful for college,” Laird said. “It’s nice to take on new courses, because you may learn something new.”

For more news, read the April 17 article, BRIEF: Spanish classes to visit Univision.