Introduction
Hello everyone. If you didn’t know, I recently graduated from Academy of the Canyons (AOC) this month. I thought it would be interesting to reflect on my AOC experience, as well as ask some of my friends about their thoughts, so that’s what this post is going to be about.
My thoughts
Honestly, I’m not sure where to start. There is just so much about AOC that we can talk about. For now, I’ll start with academics.
Academics
Freshmen year. Every teacher I had taught me something new, and I really have no complaints against any of my teachers. What Mr. Koegle taught about biology and health is definitely what still sticks with me today. His teaching style, his approachability, etc. COC classes were also pretty chill, nothing too hard yet.
Sophomore year. I have to say that I felt like it was too easy in a sense? What Mrs. O’Shea taught was pretty much a repeat of what we did in english last year. Mrs. Rubay didn’t really teach at all to be honest. She would just give us packets and projects to do. I liked Ms. Siner though, I feel like she taught well, and her class was pretty light. COC did kinda ramp up as I took precalc and calc, but it was all doable. Teachers were all understanding about COC classes and I liked that we had plenty of advisement and open period time to do homework.
Junior year. I think I had the best teachers this year. Mrs. Garvar and Dr. Shapiro are truly the only ones carrying AOC’s reputation of being academically rigorous. Mrs. Garvar’s english class is what really taught me how to write and I learned so much about modern history in Dr. Shapiro’s. I loved that they blended their two classes and their teaching styles really appealed to me. COC, of course, got even tougher with now calc 2, calc 3 and physics (giving me my first B!!!) NEVER take hybrid physics.
Senior year. The final year. All the classes were pretty chill as we got college apps and stuff going on (speaking of college apps, I’ll probably do a separate post on that and about my own experience with the process). My only complaint is probably about Mr. Worby’s way of teaching econ. He could’ve done so much with that class, but in the end, all we did were packets. Academics wise, oh my days. Afternoon physics is very soul crushing, but it was a pretty enjoyable and unique experience. Lin alg and diff eq are both pretty light classes I would say if you take them with the right professors.
Overall, I think all the AOC teachers I had cared about me and my life outside of class. They were all understanding, and I would say I learned at least a few new things in all of their classes. I also like the project based learning component of AOC’s curriculum, and I hope that stays the same for the future.
I’ll start off with saying that AOC has very, very limited ECs (extracurriculars) that you can do. Yeah, there are a decent number of clubs, but other than that, we have to go to other schools to participate in things like JROTC. Even SOAR (which a lot of AOC students do), is outside of school time. Robotics too, we have to go to West Ranch.
I mostly participated in clubs, so I will speak on that. I knew I wanted to go into the STEM field, and AOC basically has 2 STEM clubs: Imagining the Future and Math & Physics. That’s it. I joined those 2 clubs, and I was fortunate enough to gain leadership in both. I love both of these clubs and I’ve made so many friends and met new people in both. These clubs are I would say were the best part of my AOC experience.
To talk briefly about college apps, I feel like AOC having limited clubs kinda worked in my favor. I took advantage of all the opportunities I had (which were these 2 clubs) and was involved in both of them as much as I possibly could, which I think helped me at the end of the day.
There are many clubs at COC, that I wish I had joined, like the NASA Astrophysics Team. This one is definitely one of my biggest regrets as it’s one of the coolest things COC offers and is a door to so many opportunities, but I passed up on it.
Social and Mental Wellness
Coming straight out of online school where I talked to the same 3 friends everyday did not really set me up for success at AOC. I’ve always been introverted, so my first few weeks at AOC were a bit challenging regards making friends. At the end of Freshmen year though, I made a few friends that I am still friends with today.
In sophomore year, I feel like this was the year where I became part of a friend group (and the one I am still part of now). In Junior year, I became closer with my friends through MaPs club as we were all officers and I would say Junior year was one of my best years social wise. Finally, in senior year, I think this was the year I got the closest with a lot of people in my grade and talked to many more people. There are a lot of people though I wish I could’ve befriended and got to know better, so I hope to change that when I get to college and try to be friends with anyone who seems like a nice person.
Mental health wise, I don’t think my mental health ever suffered while I was at AOC. I was definitely very stresed at times with my math and physics classes, but I don’t think I went past that. AOC has always been supportive of our out of class activities, so I deeply appreciate that of them.
From the start, I don’t think our grade as a whole was very into any sort of school spirit. We always lost horribly at class cup and would be the grade with the least participation in those events. I do feel like that changed a bit in senior year, but of course AOC confessions had to put a sour ending on the year. There was probably beef among many people in our grade, but I’ve never felt any strong feelings of hate from anyone.
Not technically under social or mental wellness, but I am unsure where else to put it. I just wanted to talk about our principal, Dr. Fine. To be blunt, I feel like the quality of AOC has gone down under her. Before COVID, AOC’s UC acceptances were insane. But now, it’s not even half of what we had. Not only that, I’ve noticed that she is very PR driven. If you don’t bring good publicity to the school, then she doesn’t really care about you. Lastly, I find it a bit sad that she cannot rehearse a speech for some of our most important events. Both at senior awards and graduation, she stuttered throughout her speech. Mistakes in speeches are normal, but doing it at both important events? Anyways, that is it.
Final Thoughts
If I were to describe the AOC experience in one word, I would choose transformative. I learned and experienced many new things that have changed me for the better. I have no regrets coming to AOC.
Others’ Thoughts
I was curious what my friends thought about their AOC experience, so below is what they thought.
Leslie
Positives include the teachers/staff, my friends, project based learning, and being able to get to know some of the underclassmen senior year
Negatives are when someone in the grade messes up it usually messes things up for all of us, whether we were involved or not, leading to a poor reputation of our grade
Dr fine lowkey hating us
Being kicked out of the wellness room for no reason
Lowkey weird power dynamics and nepotism from what I’ve been hearing
The prestige and overall reputation of academy of the canyons going wayyy downhill since the last principal left due to a lack of disciplinary action and accountability and attention to students
Praneel
Pros of AOC:
college coursework can look impressive to colleges, depending on which college you’re applying to; in general, though, your coursework will be evaluated as equal to or slightly less than APs.
if you are attending a UC, completing your IGETC requirements is honestly a little broken; you’re effectively a transfer student by the time you enter college, so you get to take major-specific courses only, which is nice.
AOC coursework is relatively easy, which means that you won’t have to stress too much about those classes. depending on the teacher, COC coursework can be quite easy as well.
because of this, you have a lot of time to explore things at AOC; this, if used well, is a major benefit that people at other schools don’t get.
the small community really is quite nice, in my opinion; everyone’s relatively chill, and it’s easy to get to know people and get a group of friends you’re chill with. if you make enemies often, though, this might actually be a negative 💀
Cons of AOC:
there’s no music/sports and no APs. these are usually the bulk of a “traditional” college application, so you need to put in the effort to find something to fill in that void.
some colleges don’t value COC coursework to the level that they should, which kinda sucks.
there are next to no opportunities at AOC itself for most majors. there’s like sci oly, map club, mock trial - but that’s pretty much all i can think of. this means that you need to go explore opportunities on your own outside of school in order to make up for that.
AOC students tend to be debuffed in the college application process, especially for ivy-level schools. take that for what you will.