You’re making your schedule for next year. AP English, AP Chemistry, AP History, and any other class you take solely because it’ll ‘look good for colleges’ fill in the class slots. You think you’ve gotten it all figured out until you see it.
The ever-so-scary empty class slot.
“Do I take another high-level class to keep my GPA and stress level up?”

“Do I take another elective so I can focus on my hard classes, but my GPA goes down?”

Those are the questions swarming around a student’s head as they search for the right solution when it feels like there isn’t one.
As one scrambles through the course description book, there it is. The beacon of light for the players of the GPA game.
World Area Studies.
World Area Studies, as defined by the Cypress-Fairbanks Independent School District course description book, is a class that studies current world problems and analyzes methods for resolving them. But for Megan Puckett, one of two World Area Studies teachers at Bridgeland High School, the consensus of the class is a bit more than that.
“It is getting to just expose kids to [the fact that] the world is such a bigger place than here,” Puckett said. “I think there’s this idea that so many Texans believe the same thing, that a whole generation thinks the same thing, that all Bridgeland kids think the same thing. And largely, I found that that’s not true. There’s a lot of diversity of thought.”
World Area Studies is a K-level class that has earned a reputation as an easy, or more abruptly, ‘blowoff’ class among juniors and seniors. But, there’s a large trend of students who can agree the class has introduced more new knowledge and awareness than any other course ever has. Puckett thinks the perception of the course is simply distorted.
“I think the reason kids think it’s a blowoff class is because I think kids have a really messed up perception of learning,” Puckett says. “When I say that, I don’t think it’s the kid’s fault. I think the education system has created this thing that if a class is really hard, that means it’s a good class. The rigor doesn’t come from grades, it comes from the learning.”
The curriculum for World Area Studies revolves around fitting the needs of the students who take it. Whether it’s digging deeper into the situation in Hong Kong or the opioid crisis, what the students learn is what the students want to know. Puckett thinks teaching with little boundaries is what makes the course so impactful on students.
“I like the freedom of the content,” Puckett says. “What’s cool is that we’re not held to any TEKS, so there’s not any state standards that we’re beholden to. So, I really tried to make [the class] in the same way that I enjoyed the course, which is because I got to learn about things I never would have seen otherwise.”
Although students are able to explore and form their own viewpoint on the world around them in the class, it doesn’t come without challenges. More recently, there’s been a stigma amongst some in society that teens should stay out of politics because of their lack of maturity and age. Puckett says social awareness now will actually be more beneficial.
“It’s your future we’re dealing with here,” Puckett says. “It’s all of this stuff that’s going to impact you. There’s this huge generation gap between people in Congress right now that you have millennials stepping in. You even have active people in Gen Z, who are looking to promote change. I think one of the important things about understanding the world around you is you need to seek to understand before you want.”
Seeking to understand is a huge global focus right now in a time where turmoil is the norm. Puckett feels making sure her generation of students can apply that skill can help make up for the areas in which America is lacking.
“I feel like trust is a big thing that our country is missing,” Puckett says. “Trust in each other, trust in the government, trust in the media, trust in journalism. That lack of trust has spiraled us into a lot of very scary places…I want kids to think critically about the world around them and actively try to pursue truth in a way not demeaning to others. Because sometimes in the pursuit of truth, we demean others.”
Trust is one of the building blocks in creating a more unified society. More than that, being able to trust people individually and not categorically. Puckett hopes her class can be a starting point for that process in putting humanity first.
“I would hope that [the class] builds trust in the fellow man and the people you know,” Puckett says. “One of the things I always say in this class is nobody [is to] make a generalization about an entire group of people and say they all must believe this. That is a wildly unfair thing to do because people are not monoliths. We shouldn’t speak about people in monoliths because it takes away the idea people have freedom of thought and they have their own brains.”
Being proactive. Being informed. Being outspoken. All of these elements can help set up the country and even the globe for achieving serenity and stability. Puckett says World Area Studies is not only a place to learn these traits, but also an opportunity to spark positive change.
“The most dangerous thing to democracy is an ill informed electorate,” Puckett says. “See the world as an opportunity to learn and see those who are different from you as an opportunity to learn from them…That’s what I would want people to get out of the class, that learning should be joyful and there’s so much more that brings us together than what divides us overall.”