With more information that needs to be learned in a shortened amount of time in the school year, even sleep for AP Economic students is often an afterthought. Over the past three years, the AP Economics class at LHS has been through three different teachers and three completely different ways of teaching the class.

This school year, history teacher Frank Obiesie teaches AP Economics, a fast-paced college-level course that focuses on the decision-making of individuals, businesses, and the government split up into Microeconomics and Macroeconomics between the two semesters. Last year, however, the class was taught by LHS Speech & Debate coach Stuart Evensen, who took leave to go on a trip to Saudi Arabia. During the 2012-13 school year, LOHS Marketing teacher Ryan Durrett taught the LHS AP Economics class.

“Although I like the subject of AP Economics itself and Mr. Obiesie as a teacher, I find myself working way too hard every night to finish my Econ homework,” said senior Camila Contreras Merlo Flores. “Because the class is so fast-paced and the curriculum is so extensive, a lot of the work has to be crammed into each lesson to make sure we get through all the material in time for the AP test.”

While Merlo Flores has decided not to take the AP test other current AP Economics students have started to feel prepared enough to take the CollegeBoard test in May since  Obiesie puts a strong emphasis on preparation for the test.

“Every class [Mr. Obiesie] urges us to take time every night to study for the AP test,” said senior Jini Stupak. “Since the tests are split up into AP Microeconomics and AP Macroeconomics just like how the class is organized, I have decided to take both tests to measure my knowledge.”

Similar to this year’s class but more emphasized, . Durrett, while teaching his AP Economics class two years ago, favored the application of relevant concepts taught in class to current real-world examples.

“When I took AP Economics two years ago, one of the things I found particularly helpful was the use of various YouTube clips and movies to demonstrate realistic scenarios of the Econ concepts we were currently learning,” said senior Kavya Sreedhar.