Walls’ Most Difficult Classes

Although Walls is an academically rigorous school, a few classes stand out as exceptionally difficult. Walls students must balance many demanding courses along with their extracurricular activities. The challenges stem from both the workload and the difficulty of the content.

Many freshmen said that their most challenging class was geometry, largely because of the heavy workload. Dmitri Goebes (‘28) said there was “homework every night that takes between 30 minutes to an hour.”

Most sophomores struggled in Humanities II, partly due to the increased workload and the demands of Sophomore Speech. Zoya Anderson (‘27) explained that balancing heavy content work with speech preparation was difficult. She noted that it was especially challenging for sophomores because it was likely their first major public speaking assignment, saying that some “people don’t have the confidence yet to stand up in front of the whole class and present a ten-minute speech.” However, she was confident that the Sophomore Speech would be key to improving public speaking and writing skills.

For juniors, AP Physics was a particularly difficult course. Cameron Lavelle (‘26) said, “It’s difficult because it is a very math-intensive class, it moves very quickly, and the workload can be high at times.” Not only was the content challenging, but the pace was also extremely fast, covering more topics than the non-AP course.

Seniors were bogged down with the Senior Project, the major research assignment that most students completed. The Senior Project class this year had been very experimental, creating some disorganization on top of the demanding workload. A senior also added, “There’s only one humanities teacher (Ms. McGlennon) that’s a Senior Project teacher.” This made it difficult to receive valuable feedback and improve on skills that were particularly relevant to humanities.

Although every course at Walls was demanding, these classes stood out for many students as exceptionally challenging. Since balancing a busy schedule could be difficult, Walls provided many resources to help, such as executive functioning workshops and all-subject tutoring. Don’t be afraid to seek out these resources if you are having trouble managing your classes!