Gone are the times where you could bake everyday all because it was included in one of your classes. Home Economics taught more than just cooking and baking, it also taught basic skills that anyone would need in their everyday lives. Home Economics teaches vital skills for life such as meal planning, budgeting, time management, home maintenance, courtesy, communication, and goal setting. But where did classes that teach these skills go? Right now, the only classes that teach semi-similar skills to Home Economics would be Senior Transitions, Personal Finance, and Leadership. Two of those three classes are only offered 6th hour, and two of them are only offered during the first semester. Leadership is offered year-round during 6th hour, but AP Pre-Calculus and other classes conflict with this. Similarly, Personal Finance is offered 1st hour during the 1st semester, but AP language and AP literature are only offered during 1st Hour. Although these classes offer similar skills to Home Economics, there are no classes that offer the cohesive skills found in Home Economics. There’s no one-size-fits-all type of class with life skills. Even though classes with some skills are offered, how are we supposed to gain these life skills when all life skill classes clash with one another?  

What about the job market? Will the school provide opportunities to learn about career advances other than colleges? None of the representative visits that we’ve had have gone over places to go besides college. What if we want to go to a trade school? Are we left high and dry to figure this out on our own? The closest thing we have to a trade school experience would be Wilson Talent Center, Construction Technology, and Welding. Many students don’t decide what they want to do with their lives until midway through junior year. For WTC you have to decide what program you want to do in the middle of your sophomore year. Many of the programs at WTC are 2-year programs, meaning you can’t join in later. If a one-year program is chosen, you are allowed to take another one-year course your senior year.

Are all of the skills that were offered in Home Economics offered in other classes? To answer that question, no, not all of the skills were transferred into similar classes. After Home Economics was revoked, many schools transferred some of the skills learned into other classes that teach similar values. But there were also some skills that got left behind. Those seemingly unimportant skills may be extremely important to someone else. According to an article written by SHRM (Society for Human Resource Management) titled “Leaders and Employees Need Soft Skills Now More than Ever”. In their article, it was revealed that 97% of employers surveyed said that soft skills were either as important or more important than hard skills. Soft skills are defined as non-technichal skills that describe how you interact and work with others. These soft skills are just as important as hard skills but it seems as if we only care about teaching the hard skills. There are many opportunities to teach these soft skills in many different classes that already exist.