Academies at Huntley High School have become an excellent source for students to use to explore the field they are interested in. Joining an academy requires interviews and recommendations. Several students look forward to joining one. 

“I wanna join the fine arts academy because I’ve had a passion for music for so long and I’m trying to expand my horizons to get more intimate with it,” sophomore Santino Bedolla said. 

Academies help prepare students for what they may encounter in the future. Digging deep into one field in high school can have benefits for college and also give them those extra credits. 

“I went into high school knowing I wanted to go into the healthcare field and taking [the] medical academy helped me have my first glimpse [into] that world,” said Karolina Jarmula, a 2017 Huntley High School graduate and 2021 graduate from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. “I think the class material itself helped to prepare me for the future for college classes.”

Even though the academies are a great way to explore interests, some students feel they do not get enough information about them and miss their opportunities to join one or hear about how stressful it is.

“I wanted to join an academy a while ago but didn’t realize the applications were already over and that there were sets of classes I should have taken that year to be caught up with it,” senior Samantha Fox said. “A few of my friends said the work for their academies was overwhelming, so I’m not really upset about not being able to join one honestly.”

Not every class gets counted into college credit so students may be required to retake courses or relearn the information they already did in high school when they go off to college but they still help make those classes easier as they have prior knowledge.

“While I did have to relearn some things and do experiments I already did, it was nice to already have a grasp of some things which took off some academic burden and I could build off of what I already knew,” Jarmula said.

Academies are obviously a great way to get a head start into a field of interest, but does Huntley give enough information about them all so students can know about them sooner rather than later?