Two years ago the LEAP program disbanded due to a cut of training funds. Humanities was created to replace the program and give the LEAP students somewhere to go. Humanities is an advanced all-year class that combines English and social studies and is open to everyone, not just LEAP students. Because this class is considered more challenging and more time-consuming, not many students choose to take it.

Students looking for more challenging classes or wanting to apply to a prestigious college take humanities to improve their class rank.

“If you want to be in the top eight percent, have a really good class rank, or earn a higher GPA, then you should take humanities,” sophomore Vicky O’Brien said.

Like many advanced classes, humanities isn’t all fun and games. There is plenty of homework and required reading.

“I usually spend two to three hours on homework every night,” Vicky said. “If I procrastinate, the reading assignments can take up to 36 hours to read.”

Since the students go to their English class one day and their social studies the next, they have more time to do their homework for each class.

“If something is due on Thursday, but you just had that class on Wednesday you can not do it that night and do it the next day,” freshman Kelsey Clements said.

Many aspects of humanities are similar to those previously found in LEAP, like the amount of homework.

“As the former LEAP teacher here at Flower Mound I can tell you that humanities and LEAP are very similar,” humanities teacher Ms. Summers said. “I make changes every school year to the things we do in class, but I made no significant changes to the way I taught my section of humanities when the LEAP program was disbanded.”

Many of the former LEAP students miss certain parts of the class that did not carry over into humanities.

“It was just a willy-nilly class,” Vicky said. “There really wasn’t any structure at all to it. It didn’t follow the curriculum, but it actually went deeper.”

Students can choose to take either AP or pre-AP humanities their freshman year, but after that only AP is available.

“I would advise against taking AP when you have a lot on your plate,” Vicky said. “It takes a lot of time, especially if you are in extracurricular activities. The teachers do not care if you can’t turn something in. Late work is unacceptable. If you have a lot of other stuff going on then you really can’t take this class.”

The freshmen in pre-AP humanities have very different opinions of the class than students in AP humanities.

“It’s fun and easy,” freshman Taylor Peterson said. “I like having the same classes all year.”

Another freshman, taking the AP option, completely disagrees.

“Don’t take humanities,” freshman Emily Williams said. “It’s unnessarily hard and super stressful. It’s not worth it.”

There are only a few differences between freshman pre-AP and AP classes, but those differences are significant.

“A PreAP course is designed to prepare a student to take an AP course,” Ms. Summers said. “AP courses are considered college-level courses where a student can earn an actual college credit.  Both are difficult and require a lot of responsibility on the part of the student.  In AP, the learning is much more student-driven, and the expectations are higher.”

There are students that did not take humanities that wish they had, for the extra challenge.

“I’m going to take humanities next year because not doing humanities would mean I have regular classes and regular classes are too easy for me,” freshman Abbie Ruesy said. “Plus, lots of the people in regular classes are annoying.”

Now that students have gotten used to the idea of humanities, having an all-year advanced class isn’t that big of a deal.

“Humanities is a class with more work and harder work,” Vicky said. “If you want to achieve more, it’s an excellent opportunity.”