12th grade elective--mishmash of many (6 or 7 or 10) topics?

[Garga]

So, I have about 4 Great Courses catalogs scattered around me right now and I've been browsing through them.  I don't need anything for this year or next year, but I got to thinking about 12th grade (my oldest is in 10th now) as I was flipping through them.  

 

In 12th grade my son will have completed or be completing all the things he needs to graduate and be accepted into a 4-year college:  English, History, Math, Science, etc.  We'll have a nice big fat space for 2 semesters of electives.  At 4 hours a week for an elective, that's 144 hours of time we can play with.  

 

As I was looking at the Great Courses catalogs and thinking about what sort of topics my son might like, I was thinking that he would enjoy to learn a little bit about a number of topics.  But he might not enjoy the topic enough to spend a full semester on any one of them.  And obviously, I'd ask for his input on which ones to pick...I was just passing time flipping through the catalog and thinking about the future and what I know of my son.

 

Would it be crazy or would it be really cool to spend those 144 hours in his senior year during elective time just watching an eclectic assortment of Great Courses, and writing a couple of short essays on some of the content for output?  And that's it for the elective?  Just watching and learning and doing a bit of writing for output on 10 completely different topics?

 

I would think that colleges would be perfectly fine with that, as long as he has his regular bases covered (science, math, English, etc.)  I don't really know how I'd put it on the transcript--2 hours of lectures on How Colors Affect You, 12 hours of lectures on The Science of Human Decision Making, 12 hours of lectures on Classical Mythology, and so forth until 144 hours are used up etc.  If I only get the lectures with 24 1/2-hour lectures, he could watch up to 12 Great Courses during those 144 hours, though it would probably be only 9 or 10 so I could give him some hours for writing a short essay for each course.

 

What does the hive think?

 

Edited November 24, 2017 by Garga

[JanetC]

I suppose you could title it "Science and humanities survey" or somesuch.

[RootAnn]

I had all these great plans for electives (and classes!) for dd#1, but I eventually realized that my plans are not hers. The more I try to plan ahead for her, the more I end up with that I won't use for that particular child.  :glare:

 

I love The Great Courses. Let's say that your son does want to do something like what you proposed. I'd use The Great Courses Plus subscription instead of buying the different courses. If something doesn't hit his fancy, he just moves onto the next thing on the list without you feeling like you wasted the money on that particular course. (If you have a rocking library that has a bunch of GCs, that would be even better. We don't, so it isn't even an option.)

 

I'm sure you could make an elective like you describe, but I wouldn't do more than pencil in that plan right now. Chances are, your kid will have his own interests that he'll want to spend those hours on and you'll get to decide how to write whatever he spends his time on in a course description.  :lol:

 

So many classes that I hope eventually one of my kids will want to take:  World's Great Speeches, Story Telling Through Music, A Survey of Modern World History (using Billy Joel's "We Didn't Start The Fire") . . . 

[Garga]

I had all these great plans for electives (and classes!) for dd#1, but I eventually realized that my plans are not hers. The more I try to plan ahead for her, the more I end up with that I won't use for that particular child.  :glare:

 

I love The Great Courses. Let's say that your son does want to do something like what you proposed. I'd use The Great Courses Plus subscription instead of buying the different courses. If something doesn't hit his fancy, he just moves onto the next thing on the list without you feeling like you wasted the money on that particular course. (If you have a rocking library that has a bunch of GCs, that would be even better. We don't, so it isn't even an option.)

 

I'm sure you could make an elective like you describe, but I wouldn't do more than pencil in that plan right now. Chances are, your kid will have his own interests that he'll want to spend those hours on and you'll get to decide how to write whatever he spends his time on in a course description.  :lol:

 

So many classes that I hope eventually one of my kids will want to take:  World's Great Speeches, Story Telling Through Music, A Survey of Modern World History (using Billy Joel's "We Didn't Start The Fire") . . . 

 

 

What you've written is all very good.  Yes, if there's something in 2 years that he wants to focus on, that would be great and I would prefer that.  Right now, there's nothing specific he wants to study. So, I was just thinking, as I was looking at all the various offerings in the catalog, "Hmm...if he never does settle on one thing, would it work out to do a bunch of things?" 

 

Getting the subscription is an excellent idea if we do end up using a bunch of them all in one year. 

 

I really want to hear what other people think though, in case there's a huge negative to this idea that I'm missing.

[GoodGrief]

It depends a bit on his plans for college. If he is going to a place where admission is a certainty based on certain completed courses, that plan would be fine. However, some schools want to see increased rigor in coursework from year to year. So a senior year that could be perceived as decreasing in difficulty from previous years could be a problem, even if required work for graduation has already been completed.

[llama]

I personally agree with you about the choice of electives being accepted if the core is complete.  The "survey" label suggested by JanetC was a good idea (maybe you can find a common thread in what your son actually watches).

[Hilltopmom]

We did one course like that I named Topics in Modern Technology using a few different GCs.

I like the survey class idea.

[Wheres Toto]

Way back when I was in high school, one of our English options was called "Multi-Course English".  It was a different thing each quarter, with 2 that were required I think a composition and a Brit Lit.  The other two you could pick from a list of options.  I took Creative Writing and Science-Fiction Literature.  No colleges thought anything of it, and that was a core course.

 

I think calling it a Humanities Survey would work great.

[daijobu]

I'm new to Great Courses, and I'm wondering how do college admissions officers view these sorts of classes in a course description.  Do they even know what GC is?  Is it viewed negatively, positively, or neutral?  Do MOOCs have more cachet with them?  

 

These questions aren't so much about reality as perception by college admissions.  

[Garga]

I'm new to Great Courses, and I'm wondering how do college admissions officers view these sorts of classes in a course description.  Do they even know what GC is?  Is it viewed negatively, positively, or neutral?  Do MOOCs have more cachet with them?  

 

These questions aren't so much about reality as perception by college admissions.  

 

Good question.  I know that soooo many homeschoolers use them, but those are good points--do colleges even understand what they are?

[Jilly]

I'm new to Great Courses, and I'm wondering how do college admissions officers view these sorts of classes in a course description.  Do they even know what GC is?  Is it viewed negatively, positively, or neutral?  Do MOOCs have more cachet with them?  

 

These questions aren't so much about reality as perception by college admissions.  

 

I think most college admission officers just view them as another resource when it is listed in a course description. I am sure many homeschoolers list them in their course descriptions. I know I had quite a few listed when I wrote up my twin's descriptions. 

[merylvdm]

I used them with all my oldest 3 - to create electives. I didn't do a mishmash, but created "Linguistics" (2 Great Courses series + a final research project), "Arthurian Legend" (read the books and wrote essays), "Meteorology" (used a textbook as well as this son had it as his Science Olympiad event), "Game Theory" (video series, some online exercises I found and a final research paper).

 

My kids all got into colleges with acceptance rates less than 40%, and one got into Stanford. So as long as you come up with a reasonable title and explain what they did, it will be fine. I think it makes sense for homeschoolers to do things like this. Why just do the standard classes when you have freedom to do anything for electives?