By Emmy Trivette, Editor-In-Chief 

As a senior, I finally have the schedule I’ve always wanted. A newspaper class to keep me busy first thing in the morning, two AP courses made up of subjects I’m actually interested in, a quiet hour-and-a-half internship period and of course, a math class that only meets twice a week.

If I had it my way, I wouldn’t have taken math my senior year at all, but fortunately for me, with COA (Community College of the Albemarle), I can painlessly knock out my pesky math class and still receive advanced credit for it. 

But there’s more to the system than just “knocking a class out of the way.”

If receiving the high-level credit is so easy, why isn’t everyone doing it? Well, there’s the issue: That’s exactly what students have begun to realize.

At First Flight, academically advanced freshmen have the ability to take courses normally taken by juniors, and even seniors, during their last two years of high school. The freshmen take these classes, and within their first two years of high school, they finish almost all high school classes required to graduate.

So what do they have left to take? Most could go the troublesome route and take tons of rigorous AP courses to finish out their high school career – but the trick here is realizing that the structure of a community college class is not nearly as intense as a College Board-created course. 

In layman’s terms: COA courses are generally much easier to pass.

While the opportunity to earn college credits in high school has benefited students at First Flight and across the country, it completely undermines the point of high school. 

The rigor of a COA class is only mildly comparable to that of a public university course: This much has been established by students and teachers. 

This is not meant to undermine the legitimacy of the College of the Albemarle – no, what I’m trying to emphasize is that the kids taking hefty helpings of COA courses are usually not the ones who decide on attending a community college.

In terms of schedules, having a two-days-a-week class is almost exactly what you would find at most public universities, like NC State or UNC Chapel Hill. But in comparison, the AP courses offered in high school – in terms of course content – offer a more accurate example of college class rigor. 

This isn’t an issue that can be solved with a black-or-white answer. The only solution is awareness: knowing that, for the most part, walking into a COA class will mostly help you adjust to and prepare for the time management change of an actual college class, NOT prepare you for more intense college-level course content.

In this instance especially, it’s key to have an awareness of your strengths and weaknesses as a student. I know that I would never give up my COA Stats course for an AP Calculus class – my weakest link is by far math. Taking AP Stats would be a yearlong struggle ending in a C or a B as opposed to earning an easy COA math credit ending in an A.  

So think before you act when you’re setting up your schedule for the next year or two, because COA may not help you do the most thinking in subjects you might need. 

Senior Emmy Trivette can be reached at trivetteem0626@daretolearn.org.