Unlike most Chinese high school students, seniors in Canada can choose the courses they would like to take by themselves. However sometimes they cannot take the course they want to take due to different reasons like schedule conflicts.
Take me for example. At the end of last semester(学期), my adviser told me the two classes I had chosen for this semester took place during the same period, which meant that I had to give up one of them. She recommended that I take the course called life management. I had never heard of that kind of course in China so I just followed her advice.
On the first day of school, I found out that life management is an open class and every student is able to take the course. The teacher of the class told us honestly that this is an easy course that can increase our average score. It was really different from what I had expected. So I planned to drop the class. Then came the question: Could I change the class?
In fact, students are able to change classes within the first month of the semester. During that month, there's often a long queue at the office door and a lot of students want to switch courses.
After the first week, I looked through courses that were available for me. I had two choices: biology and chemistry. Chemistry is for college students who would like a collection of degrees in one specific area after high school. After having discussions and making choices, I switched my class from life management to grade 11 university-level biology. Although biology is quite difficult for me because of the many difficult words I have to use and understand, I will still try my best.
To be honest, quite a lot of students want to change classes because they want easier courses. But I think challenging myself is always the best choice. I would rather get a lower mark in a course I can really learn from than get high scores in an easy open class.
