Every year new courses are added to LFA as teachers look for new and exciting ways for students to learn. This year, a whopping 12 new courses have been added, with a majority of them coming from the Math and Computer Science department, although nearly every department is offering some type of new course. 

     In the Global Department, they are offering a new course titled, Global Perspectives: Short Stories and the Human Experience, which is a semester-long course. This course will be mostly about the art of short stories across the world through analysis and learning how they have been a path to self-empowerment for many. 

     In the Health, Wellness, and Community Department, they are offering a new semester-long course called, The Science of Joy. This course was made in order to accommodate the stresses of living as a human in this new day and age, and it seeks to provide life skills and help for people’s overall well-being based on scientific techniques. 

     The History and Social Science Department is adding a new course while bringing an old course back after a one-year hiatus. Global Affairs, the new fall-only course, is a mostly student-topic driven, assignment based course on current events and issues, such as global response to the COVID crisis, or the situations in Ukraine and Yemen. A History of Chicago is coming back as a spring-only course and is about the rise of Chicago from a small outpost to a major United States city. 

      For Modern and Classical Languages, there are two new French electives being added. Conversation and Culture of the French-Speaking World is a fall-elective that teaches students the nuances and lexicon of various francophone regions through journalism, literature, music, and film so that students can analyze the origin and significance of these traditions in the French-speaking world. The spring-elective is Current Events of The French-Speaking World, which teaches students about what has happened recently and what will happen in the near future for the French-speaking world. Through journalistic articles and oral presentations, students can really hone their knowledge of the French world.  

      In the Science Department, two new courses are being added. Engineering Robotics, which can be taken as a semester or year long course, provides students with adequate skills to build the robot in preparation for the annual First Robotics Competition in the spring, through things such as CAD software or 3D printers. Experimental Psychology, a spring-elective, introduces students to the ways in which psychologists are able to test their hypotheses and analyze psychological data, focusing on the conduct of research related to students’ own observations and interests. 

      The Math and Computer Science Department is adding a vast group of 6 new electives, with two of them being a split course from the old year-long Discrete Math with Applications course. For the first semester, this class focuses on covering the fundamental building blocks of finance, while the second semester elective is more of a study on the application of these processes into the real world. Linear Algebra is a fall elective that will cover the introductory elements: matrix algebra, determinants, and elementary vector spaces, just to name a few, of an important branch of mathematics. Introduction to Data Science is a spring elective that engages in project-based assignments in order to identify and solve problems based on coding and online analysis. Dart and Flutter, the computer science fall elective, is an introductory course that focuses on developing apps, with the culmination being an app to serve the wider LFA community. React Native and Expo, the spring elective is a complementary course to the fall elective that enhances students’ skills. According to a computer science student,  “Both of these electives are great courses to help tackle the problems that you see around you and bring your creative ideas to life.” 

      Overall, the 2022-2023 school year and beyond promises to nurture newfound learning experiences for students and teachers alike, and as the school becomes more accepting and progressive in terms of interdisciplinary studies, students and teachers can branch out specifically to fields of interest, making the future of LFA’s learning experience very exciting.