Psycho – logy. According to the American Psychological Association, “Psycho” describes an aggressive person and “logy” is a root word meaning “study of.” Psychology is the study of human behavior and how it relates to a person’s brain function.
Taft High School offers AP Psychology to all 12th graders but IB Psychology is only offered to those in the IB program. Like most IB and AP classes, students take the exams in May to determine if they receive college credit for those courses.
Taft AP Psychology teacher Jasmine Shughoury stated, “We provide everything we possibly can in terms of resources, individual help, good instruction, support, and activities to apply things [students] learn, but it is always ultimately up to them to use the materials, opportunities, and us as their teachers as resources to succeed [on their AP exams].”
One can expect to learn, “Everything from basic biology to what makes us human,” said Shughoury.
Taft senior Sarai Menez-Jimenez said, “I would recommend AP Psychology to a student if they are willing to put in the effort because it is an advanced class and if they have interest in pursuing a career in psychology to become a therapist or counselor.”
Taft senior Atlas Diaz described the class as, “Very overwhelming for people who haven’t been in AP at all. There’s a lot of reading but I’ve taken AP classes before so it’s not a lot of workload.”
Based on the few opinions, AP Psychology is recommended for seniors that have taken AP classes before and who want to become experts in the science of human behavior.
Not only does the class cover the basics of biology in order to build up to the more complex topics but it also covers the aspects that make up a college class. This allows students to know what to expect when they enter college and to have an idea of what the advanced classes might look like.
