As AP season rolls around, Advanced Placement Seminar and Research classes are finishing their final presentations and papers. The students are hard at work, and have a lot to say about the Capstone program.
Brooke Koch, a sophomore currently enrolled in AP Seminar, provides her insight on the class. “I am currently working on my IMP, an Individual Multimedia Presentation about unsung heroes and their impact on society, and finishing up my revisions on my IWA, Individual Written Argument, about the same topic. It’s been a lot,” Koch expresses. “[I feel] a little anxious as AP season is coming soon, but overall I feel accomplished and that my skills have improved from this class.”
On the other hand, sophomore and AP Seminar student Olivia Benson views the class in a different light. “I think that as long as you know how to follow a rubric properly, the class is not as hard as most make it out to be. I love writing now.”
With AP Research, however, there is no debate on the class’s high level of difficulty. AP Research student and current junior Ben Shapiro recently spoke to both AP Seminar classes to shed light on the goal of AP Research students: creating a full research project. He presented his twenty minute long AP Research presentation without assistance from flashcards, explaining to his audience the effects of AI on students’ work and teachers’ ability to grade that work.
Each AP Research student has produced unique research topics, spanning from the effects of AI in schools to the effects of visitation on Alzheimer patients. The class can be considered challenging, as a student in AP Research must write a full literature review, gather their own research, and converge it into a comprehensive presentation. However, with proper guidance from teachers and utilizing skills taught in AP Seminar, the class helps students form skills that may assist them throughout their lives.
