Reflective Essay: Diversity In AP And Honors Courses

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One of my close friends, who is Zimbabwean, mentioned to me that during her time in highschool there was no diversity in her AP and honors courses. She was one of the same few minorities who took these classes. This disturbed me because I knew her high school was very diverse and included people of all types of backgrounds. Yet, there was still no diversity in AP and honors courses. I thought back and as a minority myself I never challenged myself to take these courses either. For my specific case, I think a large part of it had to do with no encouragement from anybody. There was a time when I had considered taking some AP courses, but when I had asked my counselor she was very discouraging and advocated against it. She repeatedly said they were very hard and …show more content…
Also, being a child of immigrants was a big factor in my education. Living in a predominantly white neighborhood and going to a school with very little diversity made it harder to fit in. For some reason I always viewed myself as inferior to my peers. I had to learn English when I started school and I never had parents I could ask questions to because of the language barrier. The constant reminder that I was different made me unconfident and think twice about the extent of my academic ability. Now that I have grown and realized I was the only one holding myself back, I want to speak to minorities and encourage them. College does not get any easier and I really do believe these classes help students exceed in the future. This trend of no minorities in the harder STEM courses trancendes into college. Even now, there is very little diversity in my huge lectures of 300 students. This problem needs to start being addressed in high school, so it does not continue to exist in college. MAPS is an amazing resource I have been blessed with during my first semester at Indiana

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