Bob Jones High School employs numerous methods to pique the interest of all of its students and hopefully help them get an idea of something they might be interested in post-high school. One of the key aspects of this system lies in the plethora of choices when it comes to deciding what courses one wishes to take outside of their core curriculum. We have classes such as Art, Theatre, and Spanish all the way to classes like Culinary, Myths & Legends, as well as some work experience opportunities like Student Aide.

There are classes at Bob Jones that have been referred to, by the students, as “easy A’s.” What does this mean? To most students, the term means something along the lines of a class that doesn’t require much effort or perhaps a class where if one was to fail they would have to try rather hard. These statements are often made about classes that have been collectively viewed as not challenging simply based upon the comparison of other seemingly more rigorous courses. These claims are more than often not true. The belief that a certain class could be easy or perhaps boring is dependent solely upon the student and his or her work ethic/interests.

Mrs. Panagos, a teacher of electives, said, “I think some classes depend on YOU. For example, there are students who work for hours after school on some multimedia or creative writing projects. Even though they may enjoy it, it still takes time and deep thought to create something worthwhile.”

Alona Day, a freshman at Bob Jones, argued the importance of taking “easy” classes. “People who are normally ‘slacking’ can get easy grades without putting that much effort into it.” This thought is the clearest reason for why one may opt to take a class in which they can float through and not challenge themselves.

Freshman Jacob Nelson said, “When you have 3 Pre-AP classes, you need the ‘Easy A.'”  These classes are beneficial to students by allowing them a moment of decompression from other more demanding classes.

This makes sense seeing as how the undisputably higher level classes are seen to be co-signed with descriptors such as Pre-AP or simply AP. These titles seem to diminish the seriousness, in a sense, of other classes off of face value alone. A class like Hospitality and Tourism, for example, is a “regular” class; however, students learn real-life skills that are instrumental to the development of living as a person on their own.

“It is not about the ‘easy A.’ It is about the class,” said Ben Myers, a senior at Bob Jones. This captures the essence of what should be understood about any class. Just because something may not seem challenging to you, does not mean it isn’t challenging to someone else. Also, sometimes what you get out of something depends on what you put into something.