Casting Your Net--The Silver Lining of Electives

        Many students view their high school electives as some burdensome demand from their schools to just fill a portion of their day. I’ll concede just an ounce of truth here. Electives are generally required at the high school level. No school has every conceivable elective and all the ones they do offer might not find their way onto a student’s schedule for a variety of reasons. As a result, some students take a pessimistic view of the electives they do land in.

There isn’t always only a downside though. I believe any student can find a silver lining in any elective. Electives can be beneficial in a number of ways. Perhaps they can help a student hone a particular skill or talent. They might introduce a student to a new hobby or interest. They could teach new habits or lifestyles that increase the quality of life. They may prepare young people for a life lived well and effectively as an independent adult. Or, they might introduce and prepare a student for a vocation. All of these can serve a beneficial purpose and students would benefit from considering these upsides rather than zeroing in on what they hate most about a class.

With that in mind, what is often overlooked in electives is the opportunity for students to cast their net. Merriam-Webster defines that term as the act of trying many different things so that one will have the best chance of finding what one wants. Electives can do just that. They can be a way for students to try out several different skills that they might find have useful applications in their lives.

 I’ll give an example of how this can work. My school teaches a class called Digital Media/Multimedia Design. The emphasis of what is taught in the class is mastery of Adobe Software including Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign. There’s a little bit of photography and video production that’s taught along with that. It’s true that few students who take that class will spend their careers making significant use of this software. However, it is likely that many of those students will occasionally interact with digital images in their careers. If they ever have to make a flyer to promote something, or even post an image on the internet there could be skills from this course they make use of. They might need to do those things at some point in just about any conceivable career. What's more, we all walk around with a camera in our pocket and snap pictures regularly of what's happening in our lives. Surely, a class like this can have application there and maybe introduce a student to an additional level of photography that goes beyond taking quick selfies at your pool day. 

Students might not use Photoshop to manipulate every photo they take or use all their photographs in an impressive display in InDesign. They might need to at some point though and reaching back to that little bit of information they learned in the Digital Media class might make a difference in whatever they are trying to do. Such is the power of electives. Cast your net and appreciate the opportunity to try and learn something new.