The addition of another reality class surprised juniors, who had already taken a full year of Reality 101 as freshmen.

The addition was designed to better prepare juniors for life after high school.

“The goal of the course is to support students in developing their individual plan of study, pursue their passion in terms of a career, and increase their awareness of employability skills,” Reality 101 chairman Megan MacKay said.

Junior reality covers post-secondary options that aren’t just college.

“We do touch base on college, but that is not a focus for every student,” MacKay said. “We try to address the paths of every student; no matter their post-secondary goals.”

Some students feel as though they shouldn’t need to take another semester.

“I think it’s annoying because I already took it my freshman year and the only good part about it is that we get to play games,” junior Lillian Like said.

Others don’t mind having to take it.

“I’m not really excited or not excited; it’s just another class for me,” junior Tianna Jefferson said. “I think it’s a good class to have since it helps students figure out what they want to do in life and helps teach them life skills they might need.”

The change to Reality 101 only being a semester class for the freshman was to make room for new required classes for the classes 2028 and beyond.

“The decision was made as a result of changes made to graduation requirements that included the implementation of a financial literacy class that reduced Freshman Reality 101 to one semester with a required Financial Literacy class in the 2nd semester,” junior reality and psychology teacher Robert Shay said.

Some differences include a half credit credits in Communications (replacing one half credit ELA credit), one credits in STEM, and a half credit in Financial Literacy. 

“The biggest change for this year’s freshman class was the requirement of Financial Literacy for graduation,” Shay said.

For junior reality, each teacher gave their students an opportunity to give feedback on what they wanted to learn.

“Students were given an opportunity to provide feedback concerning adulting skills that they would like to take time to learn about,” MacKay said. “My class in particular seemed very interested in learning about taxes. I’m sure other teachers in my department had similar requests or even vastly different ones.”