Up until the deadline of October 17 to switch class lanes, many Paly juniors who began the year enrolled in Analysis Honors, the junior honors-lane math course, changed lanes down to Introduction to Analysis.
This trend seems to particularly be prominent this year, according to math teacher Natalie Docktor.
“We usually have a few students drop every year but it seems that more students are laning down to IAC this year,” Natalie Docktor said. “This is also happening to students in AP Calculus.”
According to Docktor, in her 7th period IAC class alone, nine students have since joined the class after dropping from Analysis Honors. As a result, the class is full, with all the desks occupied by a total of 36 students. Sharla May’s 5th period IAC class is similarly crowded, with 32 students.
“I’ve had nine students switch in to my IAC class in 7th period,” Docktor said.
Arne Lim, the math department’s instructional supervisor, shares similar sentiments.
“I would say that there have been quite a few [students who dropped],” Lim said. “When I say a lot, that’s relative to compared to last year.”
According to junior KC Florant, who is enrolled in IAC, there has been a drastic increase in the number of students in the IAC classes.
“During the beginning of the semester we had a lot more classroom space,” Florant said. “However, our class is completely full now and all the seats are occupied.”
Florant also describes the frequency of new students showing up in his IAC class.
“It’s crazy to see how many people are laning down so frequently,” Florant added. “There seem to be new students every day.”
By Paly’s Oct. 13 deadline to request course lane changes for students, all of the IAC classes were completely full. Students who wish to switch to an easier mathematics course from Analysis Honors are no longer able to. Although lane changes for the math classes have been discontinued this quarter, students who still find themselves struggling in Analysis H may drop the course altogether, according to the Paly course catalog.
Some students believe that the rigorous academic pace of the class contributed to their decision to drop the class.
“Part of it was I couldn’t study effectively for the material that was in it because it’s a lot of depth in a short amount of time,” junior Maryanne Fu said. “It’s really difficult for me to study that much and know the material well. It got to a point where my grade was pretty bad, and I couldn’t bring it up to a grade that I would be happy with, so I just dropped down.”
Additionally, according to junior Felix Minami, the difficulty ramp-up from the honors math classes he had taken as an underclassman was unexpected.
“The main reason that I dropped Analysis [H] was because it was too difficult of a class for me,” Minami said. “I was really surprised at the level of difficulty of the Analysis [H] class, considering I had done just fine in honors math as a freshman and sophomore.”
“I feel like they should make the curriculum in the class [Analysis H] easier because I have a lot of friends who are passionate about math and still find themselves struggling,” junior Armen Krakirian said.
Although many students have dropped from Analysis Honors this year, this isn’t a huge problem for the IAC classes, according to Docktor.
