AP Psychology coming to Maria Carrillo
Photo of Beth Cuniberti sitting inside her class (Henry Miller / The Puma Pensa)
By Henry Miller, Staff Writer
As many freshmen, sophomores, and juniors have seen on their course request sheet, AP Psychology will be an offered class at Maria Carrillo next year! AP Psychology is an extremely versatile AP class that is crucial for several majors.
Who will be teaching it? Beth Cuniberti, ninth grade Honors Humanities teacher, will be teaching AP Psychology, along with an academic class that has a semester of Psychology and a semester of Sociology. This academic class is for juniors and seniors and can be seen on course requests as Psychology P and Sociology P.
What is AP Psychology? AP Psychology is an advanced placement class offered by the College Board. The class has five main units that teach students all about the brain. The first unit, Biological Bases of Behavior, will provide students with the biological explanations of the brain's processes. In the second unit, students learn about cognition, and how the brain affects human behavior. The third unit covers how humans learn. Social psychology and how individuals and groups process experiences are the focuses of the fourth unit. The fifth and final unit goes over mental health.
Why AP Psychology? To start, all AP classes at Maria Carrillo High School give you honors credits, boosting your weighted grade point average. AP Psychology is a core class to take if you are interested in majoring in subjects such as criminology, sociology, or psychology. As well as this, taking AP courses and excelling in them look great on college applications. AP Psychology is a great first AP to take as the 2025 pass rate was 70.5%.
How can I ace the AP exam? AP Psychology is a vocabulary-heavy AP class. With this in mind, flashcards will be your best friend next year. Being able to understand psychological research methods is a must for doing well on the test. The AP Psychology exam only consists of multiple choice questions and free response questions. Students who had her for Honors Humanities predict that Cuniberti will do a fantastic job with preparing students for the exam and what kinds of questions will be included on it.
Cuniberti described AP Psychology as “such an amazing class" because "it's not just learning about a subject, but actually understanding how your mind works, which allows students to learn about themselves and others."
In a nutshell, AP Psychology will be a fun and engaging class that will be extremely rewarding. If you have any questions, visit Ms. Cuniberti in M8.