For the first spring in four long years, I don’t have to go through the stressful endeavor that is course selection at Wahlert. Whenever spring rolled around and the Guidance Office started passing out those green course selection sheets, a wave of anxiety would rush over me.

“If I take this next year, then I’ll be able to take that the year after, and then I’ll get credits for this in college.”

Before you know it, you find yourself trying to plan out the rest of your academic life in a week. Sometimes, you don’t know what to do until the window is already closed. The best advice you can get is from someone who’s been there.

Here are a few tips about course selection from a seasoned pro:

Consider this your permission to take a few fun classes. First things first, take an art class. Intro to Art, Digital Photo, Painting, the list goes on and on. Art classes are a great way to have a break in your day and still get something out of your time.

Art classes are also therapeutic and help you to get in touch with your creative side even and especially if you don’t consider yourself to be an artist. In college, it’s not very likely you’ll have the opportunity to just let loose and express yourself in the way you can in a high school class.

My sophomore year I took Painting with Mr. Bierie; then my junior year I took it again. I am not a great painter, but I learned a lot about expressing myself! In fact, I almost took painting for a third time my senior year had I not decided to do an internship instead.

Which reminds me, look into taking internships. This year I have two completely different, equally engaging internships. One is on campus with Ms. Katie Koetz in the Campus Ministry office. I typically help her prepare for masses and do odd jobs relating to religion on campus.

My other internship is at UnityPoint Finley Hospital. There I have agreed to do 30 hours of service, typically in an office setting or as a patient escort, in exchange for 16 shadow hours at the hospital.

The Dubuque community and Wahlert community have a lot of opportunities for high school students to explore career paths; take advantage of those opportunities!

Next, challenge yourself. Take AP classes and college classes. I never thought I’d survive a year of AP Biology, and now I’ve decided to major in it in college.

During my time at Wahlert, I’ve taken a lot of tough classes, and even though I haven’t always done well, they’ve taught me to work hard and showed me which studying methods work best for me. While I’m on this topic, please, underclassmen, take College Writing when you’re a senior. That class teaches you so much about grammar and writing, which is extremely helpful while writing college applications and scholarship essays.

Most importantly, pick classes on topics that you are interested in learning about. Don’t pick a class solely on the basis that you think it will be easy, and don’t pick a class solely because you think it will look good to have those credits on your transcript. While it’s important to take fun classes and to build your resume, don’t make that your only priority.

The purpose of having the freedom to choose your own classes is to begin choosing your own path. Find out what you’re genuinely interested in and keep learning about yourself as well as the topics you enjoy.