Nayelli Arteaga is a junior at Oakmont and is in the Health Careers Academy. She answers questions about the pros and cons, and advice for incoming sophomores that want to join. 

To begin, I asked Arteaga why she wanted to join the Health Academy here at Oakmont.

“I decided to join because I wanted to build more relationships with people,” Arteaga said. “I wanted to take interesting classes that met the a-g requirements without taking AP or IB diploma courses.”

Artega shares that she had no idea what she wanted as a career, and thought the Health Academy was a good place to start looking. 

When asked to name two pros about the classes, she said that you get to build strong relationships with your teachers. 

“There are specific teachers just for the health academy and you’ll know them for the entire time,” Artega said. “You have to be able to work with them, and it’s in your best interest to respect them. My other pro is that they talk to you about college way more than regular classes do. Like, they get you ready for college your sophomore year, and talk about it a lot. Other classes won’t talk about it and just expect you to know.” 

While there are obvious positives, Arteaga also spoke on some cons regarding Health Academy.

“Only being able to take on one elective each year,” Arteaga said. “For example, I had to pick dance over student government this year because I had too many mandatory classes to take, such as ‘advanced med’ and ‘Physiology’.”

Her other con was having to skip physics and go straight into chemistry. She explained it as being difficult to understand in the beginning, but she also mentions that if you have Mr. Ginn, you’ll get the hang of it quickly. 

“I really enjoy going to the hospitals,” Arteaga said. “You get to look into different areas in the medical field and you might think one area is for you, but you could find a better suited place for you.”

Arteaga finishes off with some advice for those wanting to go into the Health Academy. 

“If you’re going to join, you have to understand that you are going to have a very different curriculum than your friends,” Arteaga said. “Sometimes I would have my friends help me with studying, but they didn’t know anything I was talking about.”

Artega suggests that if you want to join then you should just go for it.