For years I have sat in my room, late at night, staring at the ceiling as sleep escaped me, wondering what is the hardest class at Winchester? Is it APUSH? Is it Psych? Was it PE? Those questions plagued me, as I listened to students complain day in and day out about their course work. I took it upon myself to launch a widespread investigation to find out what is truly the hardest class at WT. Here are my results:

I began my investigation in a place that hit a little close to home: AP United States History (APUSH for short). As I sit here typing these words, my APUSH textbook “The American Pageant” sits next to me, watching with lingering eyes. Just around 6 months into the school year, and my class has already read 750 pages. For those of you who have read a history textbook you know that 750 pages in a textbook is 3000 pages in real life. The sheer time it takes to read the pages, take notes, and truly digest what you are reading is daunting, if not impossible. Surely APUSH has to be the hardest class at WT. 

I sat down with a trusted source within the history department to find my answer. 

“Is APUSH the hardest class at Winchester Thurston?” I asked.  “Certainly, I can’t think of any class that requires the sheer amount of work that APUSH does. Combine that with the tests, and the quizzes, and everything else, I would be confident in saying that it is the hardest.” The confidant responded. 

It seemed for a moment like my investigation was finished; I had found my answer and was content with closing the small detective agency I had established in the Voice’s office. That was until I saw an AP Physics student weeping over their homework. They were tucked away in a small corner of the library, tears streaming down their face. “What’s wrong?” I naively asked. In return they screamed in my face and threw their Physics textbook and calculator at me. Maybe AP Physics was the hardest class at Winchester Thurston? I began to wonder to myself. 

I decided I would need to find a student who has taken both APUSH and AP Physics; certainly they would be able to give me a good answer. Finding this student proved to be an almost impossible task. It seems that the majority of them had withered away, unable to keep up with the amount of work for the classes. When I did meet them they made me agree to complete anonymity within this article. 

“Which class was harder, APUSH or AP Physics?” I cut right to the chase. Figuring they would want to get the pain of reliving the classes over with fast. Their answer completely unraveled my investigation and sent it flying in all directions.

“Neither!”

“Huh, how could this be? What could possibly be harder?”

“Speech.” 

“SPEECH?!?” (Imagine me saying this in complete and utter disbelief and shock). 

“Yes, speech was the hardest class I have ever taken. Getting up in front of the room and giving a completely improvisational speech. God, I still get nightmares about it. I have these terrifying dreams where I’m called to the front of the room and forced to give a 2 hour long impromptu speech. I’ve been scared to go to sleep.” 

Wow! Just wow! This was completely unexpected. I decided I would need to go back to my drawing board and figure out what to do. Consulting with the Voices staff, we decided that the investigation would need to close. We were getting too close to a certain, deeply hidden, truth: every class at WT is hard. We did not want to admit it to ourselves, but it became clear that every class challenged at least one student in various ways. So there is no hardest class at WT. They are all hard. Whether that is a good thing or a bad thing, is still up to further investigation.