A Day in the Life of a High School Student

As an 11th grade Student, James is excited about what he’s been doing this year. As a freshman and sophomore, he took core and elective classes, but also did some job shadowing that the school set up. The school also took all sophomores on guided tours of Moraine Park Technical College, UW-Oshkosh and the UW campus in Fond du Lac, and Marian University. Now, as a junior, he’s taking classes at Moraine Park and is in a youth apprenticeship program! He’s at school for about ½ of his day, taking his core classes, but is also able to move forward with earning dual credit (college and high school) and is receiving both credit and a paycheck for his youth apprenticeship.

His schedule looks like this:

• On Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays, he has a fairly straight forward schedule:
  • Mentor Meeting
    • This is where his class gets together in the morning. Announcements are made and the teacher often has a leadership activity, and he’s able to review with his teachers what’s coming up in that week.
  • 1st Hour: Math
    • James is in Pre-Calc and is earning college credit for this class.
  • 2nd Hour: Social Studies
    • James is taking civics. It’s really interesting and some of his core projects this year surround civics and engineering.
  • 3rd Hour: Spanish
    • James has been taking Spanish since 6th grade. He’s in AP Spanish now and is fluent. Again, earning college credit!
  • 4th Hour: Engineering
    • James is taking engineering and works in our Fabrication Lab doing an independent project as he learns more about AutoCAD programming.
  • Lunch
    • James has open-campus. He often eats with peers in the lunch room, but also leaves frequently to grab food out.
  • 5th Hour: Science
    • James is taking AP Chemistry this year. It’s difficult, but fun. He’ll take the AP test in the spring and earn college credit!
  • 6th Hour: Band
    • James has continued taking band classes because he enjoys playing the trumpet!
  • 7th Hour: Youth Apprenticeship/Moraine Park Tech College
    • James is working at Manowske Welding. He doesn’t weld, but he does look over their AutoCAD drawings of a pipeline they’re creating. He’s learned a lot from one of their engineers and is an asset to the company at 17 years old! He’s paid well and is earning high school credit for this.  He does this two days a week and has classes at MPTC the other three days.
• On Thursdays and Fridays, his schedule is different along with the rest of the school. This is a chance for him to be doing labs in Chemistry as well as leave even earlier on Fridays to work in his apprenticeship.