answer:I’m in favor of leaving the curriculum generalized through high school. It’s hard enough to choose a major in college….if forced to choose a specialization at age 15 I would have ended up in a completely different field from what I’m pursuing now, and it’s definitely not what I want to pursue anymore. I really think high school needs to allow kids to explore lots of different fields and discover what interests them, in preparation for choosing a specialization. I can definitely see your point though – learning some of the skills you list at high school age would be useful as hell. I kind of think they should be left optional though. I do wish high school were less structured, with fewer hard and fast requirements, in order to give students the TIME to take those optional classes if they’re interested. I would have really enjoyed shop class, but everyone was screaming in my ear about how I needed to take all sorts of AP classes in order to get into college, and when it was all said and done I never found time in my schedule to take shop class. It’s too bad that high school these days is all about taking the classes that will get you into college, not about taking classes because god forbid you actually want to learn the material.