When I was in seventh grade and attending my first Rosary open house, I was blown away. I had already shadowed and knew that I wanted to be a Royal, but my first leg of the tour answered a question that had been eating away at me: was there a possibility that I could ever be fluent in Spanish?

I’d always loved listening to it but I’d never been the best Spanish student and wondered if there was even a chance for me to be proficient in any language other than English; however, I watched as three Royal Ambassadors stood at the front of the room and delivered a presentation in Spanish after only taking it during high school. It’s safe to say my jaw hit the floor.

As my three years in high school Spanish classes passed by and my senior year came around, it was hardly a tough decision when I committed to taking AP Spanish Language and Culture. It’s been a dream of mine to be fluent, as some of my greatest role models spoke to me in Spanish as a child, like my grandma, and I’d always wanted to be able to speak back. Because of her, Spanish was and is a language of love that I now believe I can be fluent in thanks to my AP Spanish class.

As I look at my classmates during AP Spanish, I always wonder what their motives are considering Rosary only requires three years of world language classes and many of us have filled our quota: and so began mi investigación!

After asking each girl in the class why they chose to challenge themselves, it seems like we fall into two camps: native speakers that want to improve their overall skills and make it easier to communicate with their family and Spanish students that wanted to challenge themselves by learning an unfamiliar language.

Spanish can open many doors as speakers not only converse with new people but also reaffirm their connections to their loved ones who prefer to speak in Spanish. Twins Isabel and Esther Solorio ’23 come from a family of native speakers and wanted to improve their skills when speaking with their family, and junior Alyssa Ramirez shared the same sentiment, saying: “I took AP Spanish because I wanted to better communicate with my family that speaks Spanish.”

Considering this class has a massive focus on fluency when speaking and listening, these girls will definitely end the year with a better understanding of conversing with their loved ones: after all, Chloe Hoyos ’23 said that she also mostly took AP Spanish to better communicate with her family, especially with her grandmother. With the wide range of cultural topics that this class covers, I wouldn’t be surprised if Chloe and her grandmother never run out of topics to talk about!

Some of Rosary’s AP Spanish students have no problem communicating with their families but would like to challenge themselves by improving some of their specific skills. Gabriella Thompson ’23 explained that she took AP Spanish because she “would love to be able to speak it better instead of just understanding it.” Fellow junior Natalia Chavez relates, as she is a native speaker but wanted an academic challenge with formal Spanish.

Now, we enter our second group of AP Spanish takers: the overachieving students that learned most of their Spanish from school and tie it together with what they know from home or media.

Considering my twin and classmate, Charlotte Jordan ’23 is known among fellow Royals as the quintessential overachiever, AP Spanish was the best possible next step in her challenging academic career. Charlotte also grew up with a love for Spanish, though we didn’t speak it at home: “I took AP Spanish because I really love learning the language and I think it’s important to know how to speak more than just English.”

Juniors Briana Reyes ’23 and Siena Bran ’23 both wanted to take AP Spanish for the academic rigor and the opportunity to understand more about Spanish, with Siena saying, “I took AP Spanish because it will push my GPA up and it’s a great opportunity to learn more about Spanish overall.”

Just like me, fellow senior Caela Cabal hopes to have a great understanding of Spanish: “I took AP Spanish because I really wanted to improve and hopefully become fluent in the future.”

Under the masterful guidance of Señora Kam, I have no doubt that the dozen of us taking AP Spanish this year at Rosary will reach all of our individual goals. Whether it’s speaking to our families or taking the toughest class possible or even just pursuing a genuine passion for learning Spanish, AP Spanish is definitely a class on campus that’s worth the challenge.