Stuyvesant Offers “Fun” Electives for the Upcoming School Year

Stuyvesant High School, known for its rigorous courses and immense sleep deprivation, has always been hailed as the best high school in New York City. However, in a recent effort to create a more inclusive and engaging curriculum, the administration has decided to implement several new and somewhat unusual courses for the 2023-2024 school year. 

“After an emergency meeting among members of the administration over course offerings, we decided to be more innovative and come up with classes that students want to take and that teachers want to instruct,” Principal Seung Yu said in an interview with The Spectator. “Our new goal is to allow students to learn things that are more applicable, because let’s face it: who needs to find the equation of a parabola or the gravitational force of an object in real life?” 

Instead, the administration has decided to offer classes more relevant to teenage life, such as Gaming, Pop Culture, Memes, Slang, and Social Media. These courses are meant to help students navigate the ins and outs of modern civilization so that they will no longer be laughed at for living under rocks.

One such course is Into the Hoyoverse, a one-semester elective taught by physics teacher Jeffrey Wan, on popular games like Genshin Impact, Honkai Impact 3rd, and the recently released Honkai Star Rail by the company Hoyoverse. “These games are all the rage right now, attracting players with massive updates and, of course, new hot characters to simp for, pull for, and waste your money on,” Wan explained. “Hopefully, students will actually do their homework after school instead of procrastinating, since they will have already done all their recreational activities in class.”

Due to the diversity of different games, another one-semester elective called Multi-Noob Players—taught by chemistry teacher Michael Orlando in place of his AP Chemistry classes—will cover numerous multiplayer games, including Among Us, League of Legends, Valorant, Minecraft, and even Mario Kart. “I already have trauma from being killed by Mr. Orlando last year—because he’s the teacher, no one sussed him for being an imposter,” an anonymous junior bemoaned. “What’s next? Failing me because I shot him in a game of Val?” 

Not all responses to the new courses were positive. “I don’t understand the need for AP Poppy Pop,” an enraged parent ranted. “My kid already blasts, uhh… Draco? In the car at full volume! Do you know how embarrassed I get when other drivers give me the side-eye? I don’t understand all these ‘ur mom’ jokes either; do kids really need to learn more slang to confuse the older generation? They also don’t need to learn these new TikTok dances or whatever kids do these days. Seriously, we sent our children to Stuy so they could suffer, get into good colleges, and have good careers, not whatever this is!”

However, others are optimistic that the changes in the curriculum will transform Stuy’s culture into something less stressful but no less challenging. “We realized that it is counterproductive to stress our students out and give them depression,” Assistant Principal Casey Pedrick said. “Having the approval of the DOE and College Board makes the transition much smoother. I’m sure they’re thrilled to make regents and AP exams for subjects students might actually do well on! Those high scores from Stuy students will definitely look good for college apps.”

Though experimental and atypical, these changes in Stuy’s course offerings will hopefully provide a breath of fresh air for a school whose culture has become somewhat stagnant. As a senior said, “I’m sad that I’ll be missing the fun, and honestly, I’d rather you guys suffer like we did—but since I’m a nice person, I hope you guys have good years to come!”