Each year during course selections, the school sets up Course Rush, an event where students and teachers of various programs have the opportunity to promote to students.
Course Rush took place in the quad yesterday and today. During the event, students visited each program’s booth to hear about the offerings from students of the course themselves and ask questions.
There are tables in the middle of the quad laid into two lines with a path for students in the middle. Each table had students and/or teachers of that program who explained their courses. There were trifold posters on the table or flyers and samples taken from the class to better give students an idea of the class.
Counselor Maria Nash expressed that, as counselors, Course Rush is important in helping students choose their schedules.
“We want students to really explore and research on classes that they may potentially want to take and make a decisive decision when selecting electives. We always run into issues with students not knowing what electives to take,” Nash said.
She encouraged students to attend and felt that the event could have more people in the future.
“What I think is that not enough students participate in it. They don’t take advantage of the opportunity available to them, so that’s quite unfortunate,” Nash said.
Class of 2026 President and ASB member Katelyn Zhou spoke on behalf of ASB to explain that the reason for Course Rush is to increase awareness of the various courses and leadership involvement at school.
“We believe Course Rush is a really good opportunity for underclassmen to be more aware of a bunch of the resources and opportunities that we have on campus,” Zhou said.
The method that ASB used to place tables is a combination of requests and personal jurisdiction from ASB as to where things should go.
“Sometimes courses will request to be next to each other, so usually leaderships go next to each other. This time, I think peer counseling wanted to be next to mathematics, so usually it’s set up like that. And then we have sports medicine across from human anatomy because they’re around the same genre,“ Zhou said.
Course Rush lets programs spread the word about their class beyond traditional course descriptions in the catalog. The booths gave interested students the chance to talk to people in person and made the event more informative than other processes, such as flyers.
“We want to make it go around the school, and people hear about it, and then people who are interested join, you know? And it does. It does really help because some people come over here and they are like, ‘What is this?’” junior and Air Force Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps (AFJROTC) 1st Sgt. Leslie Ventura said.
Course Rush allowed for broader connections between different programs and students outside of the classroom.
“Oh, it’s a little chaotic. But you know what, I get to meet the students who never come by our room. So it’s kind of cool. Get to meet the new people,” choir teacher Kana Croissant said.
The booths typically gift students with things, such as candies or toys. Choir gave out new limited-edition stickers of the department’s instructors for the first 50 sign-ups and wristbands that said “Just Join Choir” on them to students for stopping by.
“This is the first year we have my Croissant sticker. And this is just the first time. We just asked students, our current choir students, ‘Hey, what could be cool gear? You know, little something for the students to take home.’ And then they said the wristband,” Croissant said.
For interested students, the setup provided convenience for them to quickly sift through the options and more deeply explore classes they’re interested in. Junior Mohamad Lubbadeh felt that hearing from students who were already enrolled in these classes provided surprising considerations.
“I never thought I would join art. Now I’m considering this,” Lubbadeh said.
