Homework. Everyone’s favorite. All of us at Liberty must complete it, but we go about it in different ways. Some of us power through it right when we get home, and some of us stay up until 2 a.m. trying to finish an essay that should have been started two weeks ago.

Guided Study aims to provide extra time to those who may not have time or may not be able to focus at home. But how effective is it really?

Many students who have taken Guided Study say that it’s useless. They complain about the lack of focus in the class, and how many unnecessary distractions there are: excessive talking, social media, and a generally unproductive atmosphere. This is completely understandable, as friends can definitely be distracting when you’re trying to focus on right triangle trigonometry.

So maybe signing up for Guided Study isn’t the brightest idea. Art or drama classes can provide a creative outlet and relaxing environment for all of your school stress, and real-world experience classes such as Learn and Earn can teach you valuable skills that you will be able to use for the rest of your life.

These types of classes are much more productive and valuable for real-life situations.

For some, Guided Study only provides one and a half more hours of procrastination.

That said, Guided Study isn’t entirely a waste of time. For some students involved in time-consuming extracurricular activities, or for students with many difficult classes, a little extra homework time (and a little extra sleep) might be worth taking Guided Study for. If you are one of the lucky people that are able to work well in a wildly distracting environment, it could be a really effective class to take.

Guided Study can be a blessing or a curse, so students need to be realistic and know if they would be successful in Guided Study before signing up for it.