Which classes/subjects did you get in high school?

2 comments

1. I’m a bit older (started high school in 1993) so I’m still from the generation of the “vakkenpakket”, the “subjects package”. You’d start high school with a broad spectrum of subjects, but halfway though high school you’d choose your subjects package to graduate.

   You had to pick at least seven subjects, and the only other rules were: Dutch is mandatory, and you have to pick at least one other modern language. Practically everyone picked English. Many people chose French or German in addition to that (I picked German). Some schools offered Spanish, but mine didn’t.

   I also picked Latin, history, physics, and math B (calculus and geometry). That means I dropped Greek, math A (statistics and matrices, which was seen as the “softer” math), French, chemistry, biology, geography… I think that’s it. It’s been a while.

2. When you graduate from 9th grade in Portugal you can elect to go to secondary school or professional school. You typically find both in an actual school, the former being comprised of four standard courses (Languages & Humanities; Sciences; Economics; Arts), and the latter being comprised of vocational courses (ex: Mechanic, Electrician, Tourism, etc…).

   The curriculum varies according to which course you pick, but Portuguese and a second language are obligatory. Mathematics is also present in every standard course, but in the case of Arts it is an elective (you can pick History of Art instead). Secondary school students are required to sit four exams in order to graduate, and the exams correspond to the obligatory subjects for that course (one of which is Portuguese).

   Professional school doesn’t require students to sit exams, but if they want to apply for university then they have to at least sit the exams that said university course requires. Professional schools instead require students to do an internship in their final year.

   I studied Arts in school, and so I had the following subjects: Portuguese, Geometry, Art, Philosophy (also a part of every standard course’s curriculum iirc), Physical Education, Mathematics B, English (could’ve chosen Spanish, German, or Latin) Multimedia Design, Project, and one more subject I completely forgot the name of (but it involved technical art projects, a lot of scale models).