Brandon Eshman
Pro
When selecting classes for the upcoming school year, many students find themselves stuck between taking an elective or a tutorial. I believe that taking a tutorial offers many advantages to students by offering them time to do homework and to socialize. These benefits greatly outweigh the negatives such as having one less opportunity for a fun elective.
Many students have lots of extracurricular activities, including clubs, sports and volunteer work, all of which greatly limit the amount of time students have at home to do homework. Tutorials, however, remedy this issue. Tutorials offer busy students a whole class period to do homework for other classes that they may not have had the time to do otherwise.
However, not all students will always have homework to occupy them. Luckily, tutorials still offer other benefits. If a student does not have any work to complete, they can interact with their friends in similar situations, either in class or in places such as the library or other classrooms that have a tutorial, as long as they aren’t disruptive. If a student is feeling stressed from the difficult classes they take, but don’t have time outside of school to relax, they would be able to listen to music during the class period to destress.
Personally, I find great use in taking a tutorial. I was able to use my tutorial to study for big tests in my classes along with AP tests. I took advantage of the time in my tutorial by studying content in addition to what we studied in the class itself which overall benefited me on all my tests I had. On days I didn’t have work I was able to connect with my classmates, which still improved my overall experience in school.
Con
While it is certainly useful to gain a work hour, it comes at the cost of an elective that you could find more engaging. There are so many electives to take that cater to different people. I took Astronomy over a tutorial because I knew I would find it interesting and fun. I find it better to take what you’re interested in over a class period just for catching up.
Even with a full class period, depending on your classes, you will often find yourself in a tutorial with nothing to do. Most classes don’t assign very much homework and the assignments that are assigned are usually very simple. I have had regular, honors and AP classes that assigned almost no homework which left me in a tutorial with nothing to do.
With nothing to do, I ended up using my laptop the whole hour. This is a moment I feel many relate to in a tutorial. When you have nothing to do, you’ll end up taking out your computer. Over time this could create a bad habit that eventually causes you to use your computer over doing your homework. At least that’s what happened to me when I had a tutorial. I ended up wasting my time on my computer. I feel my time would be better spent learning in class than on Instagram.
