When I came to AHS, I heard the same things about Freshman Seminar: it’s the class where you take notes on taking notes and get time to do your homework. Well that has changed. Freshman Seminar is no longer a class that you can pass by just showing up and being awake. Opposed to past years, where students in the class were provided at least half of every class to work on homework, students in the class now haven’t gotten that time all year.

I’m not saying Freshman Seminar isn’t a useful and educational class – it is. I think it’s interesting and that it’s a useful class to offer. I’m just saying that if freshmen no longer given time to work on things from other classes in Freshman Seminar, we should have a study hall period. Freshman Seminar is a class that is intended to help freshmen with knowing how to stay on top of their homework, and to help students get into the rhythm of high school. In the past, it’s been a time when students can talk to their teachers and get caught up on homework. This year, members of Alex Garcia’s class are doing activities like memorizing three hundred word speeches and writing up pages of SMART goals.

What is covered in the class is good information, and it’s all very useful. Public speaking, taking notes and other helpful techniques regarding time management and organization are part of the curriculum, but if we aren’t given in-class time, when are we supposed to do things such as talk to our teachers? Our teachers expect us to be able to talk to them, but if their planning periods and their lunches don’t correspond with ours, the only time available for us to talk to them is either at tutorial, which gives us a grand total of 20 minutes, or before and after school, which is an issue for people.

For people who do extracurricular activities, that extra time to do homework is greatly needed.  While other grades can get homework done and meet with teachers during their  free periods, that’s not an option for us freshmen. For those of us who play a sport, or dance after school five days a week like me, an extra 30-45 minutes could make a sizable difference. Personally, I can write an essay in that time period, finish math homework, or study for a test.

One might argue that we are given lunch and tutorial and if we’re using our time wisely we can do homework then. This is true; finishing last minute homework during those two times is a viable option, but like all other human beings, we need to eat, and tutorial just isn’t very long, which makes it difficult to get much accomplished. My proposal is this: we get at least 30-45 minutes per week to work on homework. That way, the class is useful in the ways that it already is, but it is also productive for us to get the things we need to do done.