Classes We Want

Kennedy Langston, Journalism I

In conversation about post high school life, so many times I’ve heard the complaints that you don’t truly learn the needed skills for college life by my graduated friends. Although high school is not a place to learn how to change a tire, being taught how to file taxes or what endures in the adult financial life are some useful skills students like myself want to learn. Personally, I have never been taught about how to file my future taxes, how to hold myself in a financial situation or how to fully pay for college. Upper and underclassmen alike share the same opinion on this topic as I (me). If more classes were based around this topic however, students and graduates alike would have a sense of better expectancy for the unexpected of life.

El Dorado High School should provide a mandatory finance class that every student must take to graduate. It would help to establish a familiarity of out of high school money management and in the end, benefit young adults that are preparing themselves for adult life.

I’ve spoken to several students at EHS, some in different grades and a few of the same, and the feedback all comes back to the need for a mandatory finance class. When speaking with senior Shelby Mills about what classes she feels should be provided at the high school, her answer was a class concerning finances. “Finance classes should not only be available, but be required.” As a soon to be graduate, Mills now wishes there was a class that could’ve taught her about how to manage college expenses and successfully set aside money for college. This isn’t just seniority mindset either. When I spoke to freshmen Kinsley Dumas and Tommy Khou they both initially stated how they felt a “class about taxes” should be provided and required for every student.

The most productive solution would be for a financial class that is based around the teaching of out of high school finances available for every student. It would inevitably take some time to fit into the course catalog, but with all the new classes that are constantly coming in it would not be too hard to do.

As a student at El Dorado High School who still has three years left of high school I hope to see this kind of class available in the near future as well as several other students I know.