To make a society, we must know “how” we work, that being STEM, but we also must know “why” we work that being the humanities. At Greenhills, it seems more emphasis is placed the “why” than the “how. 

This is the handicap of Greenhills, people wanting to do more humanities are forced to look at other options looking at dual enrollment to take AP European history or taking AP World History online which we know from the Pandemic can be horrendous. Myself and many others have these grievances and hardships but STEM kids have no such grievances, any class they could want to take Greenhills offers. 

 The math department has more than double the employees as the history department as well as half the APs available and for people like me aiming for a humanities field, this is a major setback for courses I want to take. 

When I decided to go into a humanities field after high school, I wanted to take advanced classes to cater to my interests such as AP World History, AP European History, and AP Comparitive Government. Going in, I assumed greenhills would have at least one of these due to the fact that the STEM department has advanced whole year classes for each math level and science level. The only thing that comes close to that level of choice in the Humanities department was APUSH and Advanced Gov which is only 1 semester. 

 And while I understand the reasoning for having more representation in STEM fields due to the increased opportunity, school is supposed to take a student’s interest and foster it so they can follow their interests, having little advanced classes in a certain subject can really hinder that fascination and make career choices in that field a lot harder.

 I believe that increased faculty for the humanities to teach more advanced humanities classes would greatly benefit and foster the Greenhills community. Not only would students have greater opportunities for classes in the humanities to foster their interests, it would also create way more mentors and advisors for kids who want to go into the humanities.

With Greenhills having such a high emphasis on community, there is a sense of each individual departments feel like you personally are apart of them when you take an advanced class due to the amazing teachers here and small class sizes. The problem with this though is like I said earlier, there are more teachers in certain departments than others, creating a more through, supported, and fleshed out community rather than one humanities teacher teaching 5 classes.The best parts of these departments is you build a personal relationships with teachers and you grow inspired and its simply harder to do that with limited humanities and arts. 

In this day and age where much of our lives are determined by government and history, it is imperative that as much emphasis is placed on the arts and humanities as STEM. It’s important to know where we came from and how to look at things from different angles, find different angles, not just mathematically. As the old saying goes,“Those who do not know history are doomed to repeat it”.