Stress plays a large part in student life as students have to balance strenuous school schedules with time-consuming extracurriculars. One way that many students try to limit this stress is to take less classes — take a prep — and give themselves more time to work on other schoolwork. However, with more required classes needed to graduate, many students find it hard to fit a prep into their schedules.
Though all the required classes are chosen for a reason, not all the implemented requirements achieve their intended goals. One of the requirements in particular, the Career Technical Education (CTE) requirement, is meant to educate students in the skills needed for their careers later in life. However, it has reached the point where it does not accomplish what the administration originally planned; it is not helpful to students and currently just takes up space in a student’s schedule.
The Career Technical Education (CTE) requirement requires a student to take an approved course for 10 credits, or two semesters. These classes typically do not fulfill any a-g CSU and UC requirements.
Currently, the system for CTE required classes is flawed. The purpose of the CTE requirement is to provide students with the knowledge needed to prepare them for careers, generally within a certain field. However, the classes offered for CTE credit are limited and do not pertain to many students’ interests. Students end up picking their class somewhat randomly, and they pick the class solely to fulfill the requirement. Because of this, the classes aren’t actually helpful to what students will need to know for the career they choose.
Though the intentions for the CTE credit are good, how the requirement is actually executed doesn’t achieve the desired purpose. For those who are not interested in computer science or language arts, the choices are extremely limited. There are no classes that count towards CTE credit for those who are interested in math or history fields.
The CTE credit needs to be redesigned to be relevant to students. Ideally, more classes should be added that fulfill the CTE credit, mainly in the areas of study that are lacking classes. Additionally, if adding more classes would be too challenging, more non-CTE classes should count towards the CTE requirement, widening the choices for students without depleting the school’s resources.
The credit should include more skills needed for careers. If courses specializing in specific careers would be too difficult to arrange for enough variety to interest a significant number of students, there should be a broad course that teaches basic skills needed for any type of career. Skills such as résumé building, interview strategies and the financial side of managing a business could all be covered in a general class that could count towards CTE credit for students who are unsure what career path they would like to take.
If the CTE requirement were changed so that it could better fit students’ needs, the class to complete the credit may not be viewed as a waste of time and chosen randomly. By accommodating for a wider range of students, the classes could accomplish their original goal of providing students with more knowledge and expertise for their chosen career path.
