After his freshman year, sophomore Klint Villafuerte had the opportunity to take AP style classes. Believing that these AP classes would simply mean more homework without much help from the teacher, he pushed himself further into choosing two AP style classes: AP Physics and AP World History.

At the beginning of the school year, Villafuerte admits he struggled, and now, with less than two months of school left, Villafuerte is continuing to struggle with his AP classes.

“When I first found out about the opportunity to take AP classes as a sophomore I thought the classes would be easy, but I was really wrong,” Villafuerte said. “Taking these classes have been difficult from day one. I knew they were college based, but I guess I underestimated the difficulty.”

According to Villafuerte, the difficulty level of the classes has not changed, but stepping into a new type of classroom environment has changed his perspective on the rest of his classes.

“Every time we learned a new topic I found it really hard to catch up because of the fact that I was still stuck on the last topic,” Villafuerte said. “With all my other classes I never had much trouble with keeping up.

During the first week of school, he realized how hard he would have to work. Over the summer they were given a packet to finish as a beginning step into AP Physics.

“I tried to do the packet, but the more I got into it, I realized it was a lot harder than I thought it was going to be,” Villafuerte said. “Finding out that only I and a few sophomores were going to take physics, I was pretty shocked. I wasn’t really scared. I was actually kinda happy that I was taking something that made me different from everybody else.”

Villafuerte’s friends, who decided against AP classes, warned him about the decision he had made and what it would do to his future.

“I told my friends about it,” Villafuerte said. “They all started to suggest that I quit the class because of how badly it would affect my GPA. Even after the first semester, I saw the change in my GPA, but I still stuck with it and decided to finish the course.”

Reaching close to the end of the school year and his AP exams, Villafuerte has high expectations for himself.

“I believe in myself as a student and my abilities as a student,” Villafuerte said. “I know I struggle in my AP classes, but I doubt I’m going to give up just because it gets hard.”