@TheBigChef, those two classes were my only Cs in high school!
Culinary Arts. Both of ours took it as an elective senior year and I think itâs the only HS course they still have the notebooks from. They use that info daily and learned a ton.
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I asked mine and both initially came up blank saying nothing in particular, but most helped them with something. Then older S chimed in that the most useful were his gov schoolâs DE Chem/Bio classes because they got him out of taking science in college. 
Younger S agreed with that. Neither of mine cared for science.
D was glad she took drama because she learned how to be in front of people and speak and also to handle spontaneous questions. She never considered herself a math person, but taking AP Calc (she did very well in it) was helpful in her MBA program.
S took 6 years of Latin (middle and high school) and it has been very useful in studying another language.
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Thanks for your response! My student is considering ChemE but her HS is not offering AP Physics C this year. She is going to take it through UC Scout this next semester. Where is your student attending for college?
D18 would definitely say theater. Having to speak in front of people, improv, memorizing lines- all that is very helpful in her job in hospitality. Having to keep on a smile while being yelled at and replying pleasantly is an acting skill 
Also Spanish, having some basic Spanish has been very helpful.
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AP physics C is not required to enter a chemical engineering major as a frosh.
Some kind of physics in high school is recommended as part of preparation for physics in college.
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While it was an easier course than many other math classes for my kid, she still has found AP Stats to be the most useful APs she took. She took her stats requirement this year (she did not use her AP credit to skip the requirement), and was able to actually understand a lot more than just the mechanics of using stats tests, but also the underlying reasoning.
She also discovered that she loves stats and will be taking more advanced statistical methods courses.
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Sheâs at Purdue. Itâs been super place for her.
Spanish, because we moved to a Spanish speaking country when D2 was a junior.
My kidsâ school required students to write papers in almost all classes and present in front of their peers. Those skills are invaluable in their professions now.
In my current job I need to present at various venues. I really didnât become comfortable with it until much later in career.
For my older daughter, it was Italian. She took her first Italian class in sophomore year- sheâd taken two years of Spanish prior to that. She hated Spanish and just thought foreign languages werenât for her, but she loved Italian. Sheâs now an Italian major, TA, and rep for the department, and taught a homeschool beginner Italian class. Sheâs also did a semester in northern Italy and worked a summer as an au pair in Sicily. We had to search out Italian and it was pretty inconvenient too, but Iâm so glad we didnât let her give up when Spanish didnât take- she now has studied Russian, Latin, Macedonian, and Swahili. It turns out that foreign languages are definitely for her after all.
For my younger daughter it was dance class. Sheâd been a gymnast for years but fell in love with ballet. Now sheâs a professional trainee and plans to major in dance performance next year (sheâs on a gap year). She honestly doesnât love school, so wanting to be a better student so she could get into colleges was a gift- she even did dual enrollment courses just so she could fit as much dance into college as possible and still double major. It was a lifeline for her.
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AP Bio. Gave them the foundation and vocabulary to help them be able to understand medical issues.
Consumer Math - Yup. That practical stuff you actually use almost every single day.
Art all four years (including two years in AP 2D Art) - Ended up in a design career.
Add us to the Latin enthusiasts. I know DHâs and my interest in languages fed this. But starting in middle school, D1 took to it. Later in hs, she decided she would be a Classics or medieval major, so Latin provided a great basis. And led her into ancient Greek.
I thought this thread might be about unexpectedly useful classes. Iâd say math. She has no particular math talents or interest. Wasnât a strong suit in hs. But wound up in fields that require that logical thinking. First semi tech start ups, now a tax consultancy firm. (Kids can surprise us.)
I thought this thread was about the not-so-obvious for academic purposes too. Mine used essentially all of theirs for foundations in college. I canât think of any they could (or should) have avoided.
Public speaking (one I mentioned) is one few students at our school take - yet it proved to be very useful for everything from college interviews to leading groups. Mine were leaders during their high school days, but the info on how crowds react to various things and the tips plus experience in that class gave them quite a bit more.
It would seem that HSs your children attended have many more offerings than our local school. To switch out of Spanish, which my son disliked (imagine having mostly Latinos in the class), he took Latin at the local U. Micro-Econ and most of his math classes were also at the U.
My daughter felt similar after six years of French. Didnât think FL was her cup of tea, but she kept at it just for the challenge.
Then she discovered Japanese. Itâs one of her true loves. She first took it as a college soph, and within a very short time progressed to a good level of fluency. She LOVES it, and Japanese culture. She is dying to go back to Japan. She reads Japanese literature and watches Japanese films even now that sheâs out of college.
Foreign languages can inspire more than just learning a language.
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My oldest D who is majoring in OT took both AP Bio and two. 1/2 year classes of CP Anat & Physiology her senior year of high school. She claims though the CP class seemed very easy/basic/boring while in HS, the recall and familiarity for these classes set her ahead and enabled her to excel versus many of her peers in related college coursework.
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My kids were homeschooled, but our local high school had very basic and mostly non-advanced courses in only typical subjects. Had they gone to the local high school they would have had VERY different transcripts. Their ECâs took 20-30+ hours per week, so if they were in traditional school at all, we wouldnât have been able to seek out alternatives for them; no time.
If we are talking about ânon obviousâ stuff - probably theater was the biggest surprise in terms of usefulness. Not only did it help with public speaking but my D totally came out of her shell as a result of the confidence she gained doing theater. (Itâs the one for fun EC she still does in college).
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