Disadvantages Of Pre-Ap Classes

“Take advantage of my class now because you’re not going to have it this easy when you get to college.” This is a sentence used by not all, but most of my high school teachers, usually after they’ve extended a deadline that the majority of the class had failed to meet. I think when situations like this arise, they have to stop and ask themselves if they’ve failed as teachers or if we’ve failed as students. Nonetheless, the deadline still gets extended. I’ve taken all Pre-AP high school courses, all promising to prepare me for college, yet I sit here in front of my computer doing extensive research on what a proper MLA format paper looks like. I’m not going to sit here and completely bash my high school for all the empty promises it’s made because …show more content…
I was asked to write three essays the first semester, and I did so just as I was taught to freshman year. The teachers didn’t care much, so I didn’t care either. The second semester I took English II and once again the standardized testing writing format was instilled in me. My teacher wanted me to follow the format, but she still wanted me to have a voice within the essay. The problem was that every time I had to follow these guidelines it felt like my voice got drowned out and someone else was writing, not me. This was the first semester my teachers ever assigned me so much work I stayed up all night working on it. This was also the first time I ever heard of an APA style essay. My teacher threw and essay topic for us to write on and expected us all to do it in APA style formatting without having taught us a single thing on it. Although most of us did research on APA style papers, everyone that turned in a paper failed the assignment. Needless to say, that was the last time he made us write in APA style formatting – rather than teach it to us like he should have at the …show more content…
I’m still not completely sure why MLA, APA, Chicago, and CSE formats are important, nor why or when they’re supposed to be used. All I know is if my professor says that my essay has to be in a certain format, it has to be in a certain format. I’m looking into applying for scholarships and every single one requires an essay. Requirements for the essay are things such as creativity and staying on topic. I know there are many different ways to write an essay, but I’m having trouble with the creative part because of the format that was drilled into me. High school helped me prepare for college in the sense that I partly know how to write essays, I can pull off all nighters with no problems, and I’m accustomed to large amounts of work. I heard college students do things such as set fourteen minute alarms for naps because fifteen minutes is too long, and if this is true then I’m already ahead of the game. Although, my professor is going to fail me if I so much as turn in an assignment late, and I think that’s where high school gave me too much