Every year there are a select few electives that aren’t popular and end up getting cut in order to avoid dedicating an entire class to five students. This year these classes are Broadcast Journalism, Peer Mediation 1 and 2, Fashion Marketing 1 and 2, IB Business Management HL, Information Systems, Advanced Information Systems, Office Administration and Design Multimedia Web Tech.

Electives are generally canceled due to lack of enrollment. If only a handful of students sign up for a class, it makes more sense for the school to no longer offer the class instead of dedicating 90 minutes of teaching time every other day to a class of five students when the teacher’s time could be used to teach a more popular class.

A reason for the lack of enrollment may also partially be caused by the new fiance elective requirement. For the class of 2015 and below, students must take a finance class in order to graduate.

“I’m taking IB Business next year to get my credit for a finance course,” sophomore Hime Kebede said.

With this requirement, electives are seeing a decline in students. Freshman and sophomores are required to take a laboratory science, english, history and math class, along with P.E. This only leaves students with two free electives, one of which usually goes to the Advanced Diploma foreign language requirement.

“I really wish I took the finance class my sophomore year, because now I have other classes I want to take, like Photo 2, but I can’t because of all of the other classes I have to take to receive the Advanced Diploma,” Kebede said.

But not all classes have see a drop in enrollment. Some departments have seen their enrollment double with the addition of new courses. The art department over the past three years have added Ceramics 1 and 2 as full year courses. And starting next year the department will be offering an entire class on animation.

These new classes have been both very popular in terms of enrollment and have made the department extend the course offerings to fulfill the demand.

Most of the courses will be offered again next year.

New requirements for graduation is making it difficult for students to have a class they enjoy in the first two years of their high school career.

“I wasn’t even aware of this requirement. It’s a waste of an elective and I’d rather take another useful lective or take it over the summer,”  freshman Gabriel Gomez said.

Underclassmen have to choose wisely between following a high school path for a certain diploma or taking classes they want to take.

Students who have an elective cancelled for the 2014-2015 school year have to talk with their counselor so they can arrange a new schedule.

“It’s going to cause some problems because I want to do IB classes for college-diploma doesn’t matter, junior year is most important year. The finance class is okay, but you should take it freshman year because now I don’t have that free extra class. Now I may not be able to take Photo 2 next year,” Kebede said.