A Guide to Next Year’s Extra Courses
Along with their core subjects, students can take an additional course for either one semester or an entire school year. Riverdale offers a variety of courses ranging from a second language to Psychology.
According to Ms. Meg Johnson, Dean of the Class of 2025, students commonly pursue taking an extra course for several reasons. She notes that “many of the electives are offered for student interest. There’s a sense of passion for a certain topic that most students share in a given extra class.” Upper School History teacher Dr. Abbe Karmen, who teaches a first-semester history elective titled "Nations Before US: A History of the Indigenous Peoples of North America," explained that there’s a feeling “of camaraderie and community that students in the class share. Their interest and desire to learn about a particular subject make [electives] student-driven.” Dr. Karmen also added that many students want to take electives because the class material is a teacher’s expertise: “Many students want the perspective from the teacher.” According to Dr. Karmen, a unique aspect of an extra course is the flexibility the curriculum has: “If they all want to delve into a specific topic, I can do that, and that flexibility and freedom is something you don’t have in core humanities classes.” Sophomore Adrien Bouvard, who takes Japanese as an additional language, expressed, “I take Japanese because I think it’s interesting. It’s a time commitment, but I enjoy the class.” Although many students take at least one extra course during their years in high school, Ms. Johnson mentioned that many students feel pressured to distinguish themselves by pursuing a unique passion. Ms. Johnson explained that this pressure is a factor that tends to lead students down the wrong path, as “some of them may not have the extra time that is needed to devote to an extra course.” It’s important that many students know taking an extra course is not and should not be considered the standard.
Many new electives will be made available to students next year, and popular electives from previous years are making their return. For example, "Geology" and "Honors Modern Physics" are two new science classes offered next year. Students can take it in either the first or second semester without missing any material since the class curriculum changes after the first semester to new topics in the second semester. The class covers electricity and magnetism, quantum mechanics, and special relativity. To take the course, students must have completed an entire year of physics.
The science research elective is changing its curriculum as well by integrating computer science into an already interdisciplinary course. For mathematics, a new course in the second semester next year will be "Macroeconomics." Students taking the class will study GDP, the unemployment rate, supply and demand, and the effects of government intervention. Additionally, the second-semester course "Statistics in Sports" is making a return. Furthermore, sophomores, juniors, and seniors without theater, dance, or film experience can improve their speaking and presenting skills for a year by taking the Public Speaking elective.
A variety of new history electives are also being offered. The first semester offers two new electives: "Climate Change: An Unnatural History," led by Mr. Crowley Delman and Mr. Kingsley, as well as "Modern South Asia" led by Mr. Qureshi. The former will examine the human impact on Earth's environment through an interdisciplinary approach that also explores solutions to combating climate change. "Modern South Asia," will cover the creation of Bangladesh and Pakistan and nationalist anti-colonial activism in colonial South Asia. In the second semester, three new history electives will also be offered: "Plato’s Republic," "Disability in the Premodern World," and "Afro-Caribbean Cultures." "Plato’s Republic," a discussion-based class, explores the fundamental question: What is the relationship between the human soul and wisdom? In "Disability in the Premodern World," students will explore how people in the premodern ages conceived disability, investigating case studies such as the Greco-Roman world and the pre-Columbian Andes. "Afro-Caribbean Cultures" will study Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Dominican Republic in both colonial and modern times
Riverdale encourages students to explore their passions in and out of the classroom, and its wide variety of electives offers many opportunities for just that.
