Requiring high school students to take chemistry is a policy that needs to be changed. Not only is it a class that doesn’t apply to the real world it also causes needless pain and suffering and in the end can leave students in emotional turmoil.

Chemistry is an unnecessary class, it appeals only to a few specific fields of study once out of high school and otherwise is essentially inapplicable to the real world. Coronado offers several other scientific classes that can be taken in order to easily meet any basic graduation requirements. Making chemistry required wastes a year of science for those attending the school and leaves students with no new knowledge that will help them in their future. In the 2016-2017 school year there were  22,146 students majoring in chemistry in the US, out of that number only 8,758 actually completed their degree. Thats not enough people to make it a requirement.

Forcing students to take a class that covers repetitive and nonsensical topics can leave them struggling to stay afloat. The combination of learning through videos and only having worksheets to do in class creates almost no room for success on the students part. Chemistry is a class that builds concepts, once you learn one thing it doesn’t go away when the unit is over it is incorporated into new topics in later lessons. Making it virtually impossible to succeed in the class. With no allowed margin for error or lack of understanding the class turns into a hostile environment in which students are required to suffer through daily. This should not be a class that leaves kids wanting to dropout and or cry, yet it is.

Wasting valuable time learning concepts that aren’t applicable to the real world gets exhausting and spending a whole year in a class that challenges your mental stability almost daily is a recipe for disaster. The emotional load that this class puts on a students shoulders is grueling to keep up with for an entire year. By the end of the year there is nothing left in a chemistry student except tears and loads of half understood chemistry concepts.

How do we fix it? Making the class optional gives students who do not need chemistry later in life more opportunities to take classes that will better their education and help prepare them for the field in which they want to study. Doing so does not take away from those who are interested in chemistry either, it just creates opportunities on both ends. It prevents those who are undeserving of psychological torture from having to endure such a class and lets the students interested in the field take a class full of other people who care about chemistry. Give students a choice.