<p>I have to decide between (a) taking a boring, required class and (b) testing out of it (using a friend’s notes) and taking an aide position instead, probably in the school office. Unfortunately, because of my school’s limited offerings to underclassmen, I can’t do anything else, and I can’t leave school an hour early.</p>
<p>I don’t think I’d have a preference either way*, so my questions are these: (1) Does having an aide position help a person get a summer job (i.e. at a local “art house” movie theatre)? (2) And do college look at an aide position as a positive or a negative?</p>
<p>If anyone can answer them, I’d really appreciate it and would be grateful for all eternity :]! Thanks in advance to anyone with help/suggestions!!</p>
<p>*(although the first option might bring down my GPA a bit because the class receives the lowest possible weight, while the aide position isn’t calculated into GPA at all)</p>
<p>I would think that colleges look down upon an aid position. They are just blow-off classes, one of the worst ones. Expecially in the office, you simply carry around passes all hour. I don’t think that employers would see the position very enlightening either, unless you could convince them otherwise. </p>
<p>I’m an aid for my photography teacher, but that is because I have 2 other photography classes during the day, and I work on my assignments during my aiding hour. I also work with the beginning students and help them with the darkroom and film developing.</p>
<p>If you do decide to be an aid, at least be one for a specific teacher or class that you’ve already had, that way, you could argue that you helped the students learning the material, making it seem more valuable.</p>
<p>Uh oh. My school has 9 periods and I’ll be taking 5.5 classes [the .5 is one semester long and is a required class, the others are three APs and two honors]. My science class is two periods long, so technically, I fill up 6 periods. I was really hoping on taking a lunch, using a period as a peer tutor and then be an office aide. Does that look really bad, then?</p>
<p>I would totally take a period of electives, but they are usually composed of teachers that hate their jobs and students that want alternatives to challenging classes. Plus, they would lower my GPA and class rank as electives are weighted less than honors & APs…</p>
<p>I also get really annoyed that the regular classes lower your rank (esp. classes like the arts, drama, band, chorus…because these are really good classes). </p>
<p>But another thing that annoys me is that the people at my school specfically do not bother taking these classes because they worry so much about their rank, especially because I have been taking 2 separate photography classes for three years…definitely lowering my rank. I really don’t mind though. Colleges will see your unweighted GPA, which does not go any lower because of regular classes, if anything, my unweighted GPA has gone up because of these classes. </p>
<p>But since you are taking so many AP+honors courses, I don’t think it will look bad. The peer tutor one sounds like it would be an addition to your transcript too. </p>
<p>Don’t worry about it, I am an aide too, and I even put it on my honors college application (which is somewhat selective for my GPA/test scores) and I got in.</p>
<p>OH I KNOW!!! i hate the fact that the classes that u really want to take ( i have always wanted to take media productions which is basically a class where u just make movies all peirod) but i sucks b/c i have no room in my scheduel.!!!</p>