As a student in high school, you most likely have heard of AP classes. For around $96, Advanced Placement (AP) classes are high school classes you can take to earn college credit. At Yorba Linda High School, there are around 23 AP classes offered. While most people take these classes for the college credit or application, students can also learn valuable information for their chosen major and career. Here are the AP classes you should take for the ten most popular college majors: business, health professions, history, engineering, biological and biomedical sciences, psychology, communication, performing arts, computer science, and education (bestcolleges.com).

Business and communications majors deal with communicating, starting businesses, marketing, etc. Business majors learn about finance, business management and administration, and marketing (blog.collegeboard.org) Communications major teaches students abo9ut the field of public relations, marketing, and public administration (communications-major.com) Out of the AP classes offered at YLHS, the two most valuable for this major are Language and Composition (AP Lang) and Macroeconomics (AP Econ). AP Lang teaches students how to dissect important non-fiction text as well write argumentative essays. These skills given by the class help students learn how to comprehend material and communicate with people effectively, which are valuable assets business majors should know how to do. AP Econ teaches students a lot about the economy, such as supply and demand curves, inflation, recessions, etc. It is integral that business majors know how the economy works, especially when they want to start a business in the future.

Majors dealing with health professions and biological and biomedical sciences are for students wanting to be a part of the medical field or do research for health related reasons; thus, the AP classes that could help students taking part in this major are Biology (AP Bio) and Chemistry (AP Chem). AP Bio teaches students about life, cells, ecology, and natural selection, which is valuable information for someone with a major in health. For those majors, students learn a lot about biology since their career out of that major will deal a lot with the human body and its functions. Renee Li (12) will be attending Cal State Long Beach for the nursing program and believes that “AP Bio helped me prepare for college a lot.” In AP Chem, students learn about the atomic structure, chemical reactions, equilibrium, acids and bases, and more (apstudents.collegeboard.org). This will help students in these majors know the interactions within the human body since our body is made of many physical reactions.

History majors learn a lot about the world’s past, so any AP history course will be extremely useful, such as European History (AP Euro), US History (APUSH), Human Geography (AP Hug), and Government (AP Gov). AP Euro covers the history in Europe from the dark ages to modern times, and it deals heavily with the actions of England, France, and Germany, so as a history major, you will have in depth knowledge of historical events in these countries, especially which will help them out when they learn about this information during college. APUSH teaches students about Native American history in the US to modern actions taken by the US, and AP Gov teaches students about governmental and diplomatic actions in the US. Knowing about the US and government policies will extensively help a history major, especially in US colleges, as it will give them the basics of what they will learn in this major.

An engineering major teaches students how to design and build systems and structures (onlineengineeringprograms.com). To do this, students need to be well versed in math to create ideal structures, so students should take AP Calculus AB/BC (AP Calc). AP Calc teaches students integrals, derivatives, and other important math functions. These functions help find the area, volume, and other important parts of shapes, which will help students become well-versed in building things as an engineering major. Like an engineering major, a computer science major also designs and builds, but instead of building and structure, they create software. For a computer science major, it is important to be good at math and take the AP Calc courses, but also, Computer Science Principles (CSP) and A (CSA) are very good introductory courses to coding for computer science majors. CSP teaches students block code through MIT App Inventor, and CSA teaches students writing code through Java. These skills are exponentially valuable to a Computer Science major, as the main part of the major is coding.

Psychology majors teach students how the mind works, and students in this major usually want to be therapists or psychiatrists. The main AP class for this major is AP Psychology (AP Psych). AP Psych teaches students about brain functions, mental disorders, social psychology, and much more, which is a preview to what students will learn in a Psych major. Hannah Bucklin (12) will be a psychology major, and she thinks that “psych is a very fun class and is very helpful towards people interested in psych.” Also, AP Bio could be helpful since it discusses bodily functions and body parts in the brain, which could help students understand how the brain works. 

Performing arts majors are students who want to have a career in theater or movies. Literature and Composition (AP Lit) could help these majors as it discusses different plays and fiction works, which can help students discover different characters and stories they want to recreate. At YLHS, AP Lit students read Hamlet by Shakespeare and Fences by August Wilson, which are iconic plays that performing arts students would want to make or portray a character in. 

Education majors usually want to become teachers in the future; thus, depending on what type of teacher one would like to be, they should take the class that correlates with the subject they want to specialize in. However, AP Lang and Lit would be great classes because no matter what, teachers will have to read and write for students and classwork. 

Ultimately, AP classes can be extremely helpful in preparation for your major, and they could get rid of credits. Obviously, you do not need to take AP classes to be successful, but the content they cover in them can be helpful in one’s career and college.