By: Lily Zhao <[email protected]>

After having performed in numerous local competitions and having played at Carnegie Hall not once, but twice, one would think that senior Yue Jiang would take it easy his senior year and give in to easier classes that can suit his skills. However, he is opting out of having senioritis and is taking classes that help him, even after having reached the apex of playing piano.

“By not taking a piano course at school, I’m leaving room open to take more rigorous classes,” Jiang said. “I want to take classes that challenge me.”

While many students, be it a native French speaker who’s taking a French course or a chef-in-the-making taking an introductory food course, choose to take classes that benefit their skills and could potentially easily increase their GPAs, Jiang and others like him choose not to take the “easy way out” and schedule courses that they know they will excel in, opting instead to take courses that offer different challenges.

Counselor Rich Allen said that while there are reasons for taking classes that suit one’s strength or aptitude-like a comfort level or an outlet to stress; he encourages students to take courses that might challenge them more.

Allen said, “Personally, I think that I would like to see students try different things…if you’re good at something, or you know that you’re good at something, it’s like putting icing on more icing, so why not go somewhere else and make a new cake?”

Of course, what’s “easy” for one student may be challenging for another. Some students say they take certain classes because they want an easy schedule. Students in the advanced or IB piano courses, which Jiang could have taken, learn the rigors of the coursework. They have no easy way out, which is good for some, but challenging for others.

“They’re grouped by ability level, so they’re all together by ability, so there’s no one person in the class who is necessarily that far beyond the rest of the people,” Rebecca Paul, who teaches most of the piano courses here, said. “We don’t have the ‘I’m better than you’ stuff here.”

Jiang said that although he had the choice and talent level to take an IB piano course, he opted not to. Having already played the piano privately for 12 years, Jiang said he saw no need to take another piano course at school. Furthermore, he said taking private lessons at home gets him more involved in competitions because his teacher is solely focused on him, not an entire class.

“I really could if I wanted to take another piano course at school, but I really think that it’s not worth it, personally, if I can’t learn any new things,” Jiang said. “I’d like to take more varied courses.”

Still, there are other students who like the idea of taking a class that already suit their skills.

Junior Yiting Zheng said that taking such a course could potentially help her, even though she’s a native speaker of the language course she’s taking, Japanese.

“(Japanese) is definitely easier than learning a completely new language, but there are still a lot of things that I have to learn,” Zheng said. “I think being able to speak Japanese doesn’t just help me in class, but it helps me understand Japanese better overall.”

Zheng said she prefers taking Japanese as her foreign language since it enhances her ability and is easier for her.

Many students who have the skill and ability to excel in a certain area or course the school offers aren’t sure whether to take the “easy way out.” This decision is up to the students and their parents. For some students who are aiming high at Ivy League colleges, taking classes that are easier for them, but still considered challenging, may look good on their transcripts. Conversely, some students take classes such as fashion and textiles and marketing because they actually want to pursue those subjects in the future. However, there are some students who take classes that are easy for them just to get by. Allen said he would like students to take classes that will help them learn something new since the choice is up to the student.

“Taking a class or any elective should be done to make you a more interesting person,” Allen said. “After over 30 years in the game, I have found many adults who have wonderful and enjoyable hobbies as a result of a class they took in high school.”

For Jiang, he has personally accepted the challenge of taking more classes to make him a more rounded person, academically and musically.

“Personally, I really enjoy playing the piano,” Jiang said. “Piano is something that I really enjoy, but for me, taking the easy way out is not an option. I’m aiming high and not reaching low.”