Opinion: Courses that boost involvement at OH

When students start high school, they might experience some initial feelings: scared, confused, excited, or maybe just stressed because they’re starting to think about what they want to pursue as a career. OH helps with that by offering a wide variety of electives and classes that can assist students in finding their career of choice.

“They allow you to figure out what you do and don’t like. For example, if you take early childhood you can decide if you do or don’t like working with children and pick a career from there,” said senior Tess Williams, who hopes to become a radiology tech.

Electives are often overlooked in favor of core classes, midterms, and exams. They are often seen as unnecessary for many students.

“Electives are somewhat important, you’ve got to do good so your GPA stays up, but core classes are more important and hard,” said Williams.

Despite electives being overshadowed by core classes, they are an important part of a student’s career as they allow a student to find out what they would like to pursue, so here are some classes that can help students find their paths.

Graphic Communications

Graphics Communications is taught by Marie Strejc, an instructor who specializes in Adobe Illustrator and Adobe Photoshop: Two programs that are crucial for designers.

“Students should take the graphics classes because it offers them an opportunity to learn a skill that either they can continue on with a career path that is kind of within the giant umbrella of Graphics Communications, which could be anything from logo design to web design going into game design,” instructor Strejc said.

However, students don’t have to be committed to be a graphic designer to take these classes. ‘It gives you a very, very small introduction to those basic skills that you would need, and a very basic understanding of the introduction to those career paths, even if you’re not interested in maybe pursuing that career path,” said Strejc.

The skills students learn in this class are undoubtedly useful and you will leave the class learning a new skill on a well-known design program.

Graphics Communications 1 is available for any year, but it is advised to complete Graphics Communication 1 before advancing to Graphics Communications 2 and 3. That way you’ll learn the basic tools and techniques

The classroom is located in the Art Hall of the school: a quiet and isolated area in the school. Because of the setting, it makes for a very relaxed and disturb free environment.
Students are able to cooperate with each other and get help with tools and tips they need to complete their project.

“I think the environment of the classroom is very collaborative. It’s very open, and its structured in a way that you can be also independent with your projects… I like to create an environment where you guys feel like you’re working as a team,” Strejc said as she discussed the classroom environment and collaboration in the classroom.

Business and Finance

Students may also want to be interested in areas of business and finance. These career areas are important because of how our economy works and because it’s always beneficial to be educated about how money works. Two great courses for this are Accounting and Banking and Finance, both taught by Tim Taviani.

“[Y]ou get a really good insight into what all these businesses around us are striving to do. We see how a business becomes profitable, and really thats what leads us into a successful economy,” Taviani said as he shared why students should be interested in this class.

What students gain from these courses can only be described as beneficial financial skills that can immensely help you and others in the future.

Some students who take these courses are mostly interested in careers involving finance such as Financial Advisors, Accountants, Loan Officers, Tellers, and even Chief Executives, but students do not need to be pursuing a career in any of these to take these courses.

“We always want to give the students enough in terms of if they want to pursue those areas they feel ready to take,” Taviani insisted.

Accounting classes are available from freshmen year to senior year; however, Banking and Financing is a course available exclusively for senior students. If students have any questions, they can talk to Taviani in room 216.

Forensics

One particularly popular STEM elective is Forensics. This class catches the students eye because its a very unique type of science.

Forensics is the study of criminal science, so the course, taught by Shon Keener, goes into depth about morbid yet interesting topics.

“That first unit we’re currently doing is serial killers. So the students are researching a serial killer and providing information on a lot of things with that serial killer,” said Keener.
Serial killers are a topic that some students are already interested in due to the media, so this project keeps them immersed in what they’re researching.

If students are interested in topics like serial killers, they will also enjoy topics reviewed in this class such as Entomology, Toxicology, blood spatters, shoe impressions, anthropology, fingerprinting, trace evidence, ballistics, and sometimes even automobile crashes.

“So we get into the way people think, like psychology, but we also get into the hard natural sciences, like DNA, blood splatter, and that kind of thing with physics,” Keener said.

Students will also be given the opportunity to be in a mock crime scene to be immersed in the experience: taking the role of a coroner or a criminal investigator.

There are also a lot of discussions in Forensics. Students will be able to talk about famous cases such as the Oj Simpson case and lesser known cases like the Jon Benet Ramsey case.

“Justice is a big part of forensics, you know, I think everybody should have a strong thought process of justice and being served,” Keener said as he explained why students should take this class.

“I’ve had students get into police work, criminology, criminalists, students that I’ve talked to have gotten into psychology, forensic psychology” said Keener.

Forensics is a science elective available for students who complete Biology and Chemistry. If students have any questions, they can talk to Keener in room 143.