(COVINGTON, La.) — A number of new electives are currently in development or being considered for the 2017-18 school year for all St. Paul’s classes.

The curricula expansion is being done in the hope that students will have more options and can really figure out if a subject is something they wish to pursue later on in life, according to school administration.

A few new electives in the works include a Classical Literature class, which is an upper level humanities English class to be taught by Brother Rich Kovach; a Petroleum Engineering elective; and a Computer Science at the freshman/sophomore level, which will become a prerequisite for AP Computer Science.

The Philosophy elective, which became dormant this year, will also make a return next school year with current Religion IV teacher Roger Bacon to teach it.

“I’m excited to do something that’s a little bit different from a normal class,” Bacon said. “What we’ll be doing is reading texts firsthand, so primary sources. We’ll be able to discuss them, and we’ll be able to have a smaller setting. It’ll be more like a college class.”

Aside from Philosophy and other new electives, plans to expand the communications electives are also in full swing. A new Social Media class is currently being considered; as well as expansions in the business/law curriculum that may address aspects of the communications field.

“We have already for the last few years expanded the business curriculum to try to meet the needs of different students who see themselves not just going into business in general but specific areas of business,” Principal Trevor Watkins said.

Expansions in the business/law curriculum to date include the new Accounting class recently added, as well as the Intro to Business class that was added a few years ago. However, other than the business side of that curriculum, the law curriculum has also grown. During the last few years, due to the success of Law Studies class, other related classes have come into being. For example, Criminology, Philosophy, Law II, and Speech class were created to help assist and meet the needs of students who are interested in that field of study.

The move to expand the current elective curriculum is designed to help students find out what they really enjoy and want to do.

“Students often think they know what they want to do,” Watkins said, “until they get into it, and then they say, ‘What was I thinking? This is crazy.’ If a student is really interested in something — say both of his parents are attorneys; and he figures, ‘Well I want to be an attorney, too’ — ok, well let’s take a look at it. Take some classes and relate it to that. You may find you love it or hate it, but I’d rather you find that out while you’re in high school than three years into college.”