As the end of January quickly approaches, students and teachers only have one thing in mind; course selection. Many think that course selection is as simple as picking what level of English class you want to take the following year, but North Penn offers hundreds of courses that students may not even know exist. This year North Penn High School offers students eight new courses for the 2023-2024 school year.

International Relations 1336

International Relations course is a year long social studies course that is available for juniors and seniors to take. This elective is a Dual Enrollment course that provides three college credits, transferable to any college accepting credits from University of Pittsburgh, for students who complete the class with a C or higher. The course’s tuition fee is approximately $225, a fraction of the price of a normal social studies course at the University of Pittsburgh. This course builds a working knowledge of the background, theory, and empirical tools necessary to understand international relations today. Students will learn about important findings in a variety of subfields, including war, international political economy, institutions, nuclear proliferation, and terrorism. Students will also solve problem sets and work with common international relations datasets to obtain a working understanding of the discipline’s mathematical foundations.

Guitar Lab II 8439

Guitar Lab ll is an elective course provided for students who have completed Guitar Lab l or have a recommendation from a North penn High School music instructor. Guitar Lab ll is for students who already have a well developed concept of the basics of guitar. Students will focus on learning how to play in the 2nd, 5th and 7th positions, as well as movable and barre chords. They will continue to develop their performance and reading skills. Students will learn the theory of chord progressions, structure and scales/keys and will be able to apply this knowledge to performance.

Performance Psychology 1895/1896

Performance Psychology is a semester-long elective social studies course offered at both the honors and 5.0 level. This course is available for juniors and seniors and will focus on the many different aspects of everyday life that are associated with psychology such as academics, sports, creative pursuits, work performance and leadership. Topics to be considered: various theories, applications, and techniques pertaining to motivation, the role of emotion, and personality as well as the effect of cultural values and expectations. Focus will be placed on usable and practical methods students can use before, during, and after performances to handle adversity, anxiety, and stress in order to better reach their full potential in any chosen walk of life.

American Sign Language 1 4615

American Sign Language 1 is an elective world language course only offered at the 5.0 level. This course focuses on learning the basics of sign language to develop a better understanding of the predominant sign language of deaf communities in the United States of America and most of Canada. ASL is a complete and organized visual language that is expressed by both manual and non-manual features.

Introduction to Hospitality Management 5815

Introduction to Hospitality Management is a semester-long business elective course that is only offered at the 5.0 level. This course focuses on the world’s largest industry and the basics of how hospitality affects everyday life. Some of the things focused on throughout the course is how hospitality affects  hotels, restaurants, resorts, attractions, theme parks, clubs, tourism, recreation, and gaming entertainment. Outside resources, exploratory projects and videos are used to reinforce the ideas and concepts in the world of hospitality.

Financial Applications With Technology 5525

Financial Applications with Technology is a semester business class that provides students with 1 math credit. This elective course is only offered at a 5.0 level for juniors and seniors.The only prerequisite for this course is Algebra 1. The course will introduce and review topics such as  Math Functions, Fractions, Percents, Payroll, Taxes and Insurance, Trade/Cash/Series Discounts, Markup/Markdown, Simple/Compound Interest Consumer Credit, and Mortgages, Annuities, Stocks, Bonds, Depreciation, Financial Statements, and Business Statistics.

Math Applications 2435

Math Applications course is a year long mathematics course only offered at a 5.0 level that is available for juniors and seniors to take. This elective is a Dual Enrollment course that provides three college credits, transferable to any college accepting credits from Montgomery County Community College, for students who complete the class with a C or higher. The course requires an approximately $200 tuition fee. The course is designed to expose students to topics like mathematical applications from linear programming, probability and statistics, and at least one of the following topics: matrix algebra, game theory, graph theory, mathematics of finance, and the computer with applications that have benefits to majors like liberal arts or social studies.

Executive Functioning Skills and Strategies 7932

Executive Functioning skills and strategies is a course offered through the special education program. This course is available for students who qualify from grades 9-12. The course specializes in goal setting, cognitive flexibility, organizing and prioritizing, memorizing, self-checking and monitoring.  Research-based resources will be used to support student’s growth in executive functioning strategies and skills. 

All the information above was provided from North Penn’s 2023-2024 program of studies. The program of studies also has all of the course descriptions for the existing courses that are offered at North Penn High School. To learn more about course selection students can ask their teachers or email their guidance counselor about scheduling a course selection meeting.