We all know the stress an AP class causes. If you haven’t personally dealt with it, you’ve at least heard about all the anxiety, mental breakdowns, and excessive amounts of homework that comes with taking these classes. 

Students should be allowed to drop the AP class within the first two weeks of school and at the end of the first semester. 

When signing up for an AP class, students sign a contract saying that they will stay in the class for the entire year and that they understand what they are getting themselves into. Unfortunately, students truly do not know what they’re actually signing up for. 

Students have heard from other people about what the class may be like, but that is unreliable. A class may be easier to a student who is only taking one AP than to the student saying it is hard and taking five APs. 

When taking an AP, students must sign the contract in spring before the school year begins. Before summer even starts, students have already signed their life away for next year. A lot can change over the summer that would result in a student not needing or wanting to take an AP.

During the summer, students have time to think about what they truly want to do.  They are able to learn about what they truly enjoy and eliminate subjects they are not interested in. Many students such as myself discover a new major or area of interest.

Before going into summer, I wanted to be an engineer, so I signed up to take AP Physics. Over the summer, I worked as an intern at Georgia Tech Research Institute. It was here that I discovered how much I disliked engineering and decided I’d rather be a teacher. So now, I am stuck in an AP class that will not help me in any way for my future career. 

Until students can fully experience the AP class and see how it fits into the rest of their schedules, students should be able to drop it. A student can truly grasp what the AP class is like only after experiencing it. 

When students sign up for an AP class, they also sign up for anxiety, mental breakdowns and constant stress that comes with it. Unfortunately, the school fails to mention these side effects in the contract. The school cannot truly claim to care for students’ mental health when they keep the students in an environment that is worsening it. 

Taking an AP class should not mean students have given their lives away for an entire year. Students should be allowed to drop AP classes at the end of the semester and within the first two weeks of school.