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As one of the largest schools in Louisiana, Lafayette High School is home to more than 2,400 students from a wide range of ethnic backgrounds. The school has a good academic record with 75 percent of school graduates going on to college or university in 2010. Below is a guide to choosing to pursue your studies at Lafayette High School.

The school curriculum offers gifted, advanced placement, honours and regular level courses in Maths, English, Social Studies, Science and a foreign language. Students at the school benefit from a computer network that gives them access to research from the University of Louisiana and the Library of Congress.

The school also offers vocational courses such as Business, Computer Business, Agriculture, Industrial Arts and Home Economics. In addition, there are also classes aimed specifically at the multi-handicapped, learning disabled, the gifted and the visually and hearing impaired.

This High School is also known for its extra curricular activities which include

13 sports teams and more than 40 clubs and organisations.

The school has a range of sports teams and extra curricular clubs on offer, including Amnesty International, Film, Chess, Maths, Latin and Spanish, to name a few. In addition, the school has a number of organisations such as its Student Council, Mighty Lion Marching Band, cheerleaders, a dance team, and a school magazine known as Lions' Din.

The school has sporting teams in American football, volleyball, cross country, swimming, wrestling, basketball, tennis, soccer, baseball, golf and track and field. In 2008, the school's male basketball team won the State Championships for the first time, while the following year, the girls' team made the final, also losing in the end to Chapelle. Three years earlier, in 2006, the women's soccer team won the state title.

For those wishing to pursue a career within the health industry, Lafayette High School offers its own health academy which prepares students for technical college, community college or university.

There is a limited number of places available at the academy, so students must be recommended by a teacher and undergo an interview. Once accepted, they can expect to take part in courses such as Introduction to Health Careers, Health Science I and II, Molecular Genetics, Forensics, Pharmacy Technology and Nursing.

Students can also take part in summer internships at local hospitals and will be expected to do volunteer work at local health care agencies.

The University of Leicester is a top 20 university in the UK located in the city of Leicester. It claims to be the "most socially inclusive" of the country's top 15 universities with a high proportion of students from state schools and lower socio-economic backgrounds. It is also renowned for its high rates of student satisfaction, which has seen it garner a number of awards over the years.

Origins

Dating back to 1921, the University of Leicester began life as Rutland University College only to change its name to University College Leicester six years later. Originally awarding its students degrees from the University of London, in 1957 it was granted a Royal Charter and was then able to award degrees in its own right.

Events

Notable events throughout its history include its victory in the first ever televised University Challenge in 1963 and being named "University of the Year" by the Times Higher Education in its 2008 awards ceremony.

League tables

In addition to being named "University of the Year" in 2008, the University of Leicester is consistently ranked in the top 20 universities in the UK. The Guardian newspaper ranked it 17th in 2010, while the Times Higher placed it 14th and The Times newspaper put it one place higher at 14th. The QS World University Rankings of 2010 also placed the university in the top 2 percent of universities worldwide.

Student satisfaction

The university has also been awarded Excellent in 19 subjects by the Quality Assurance Agency, in addition to being awarded first place for student satisfaction in the National Student Survey over three years from 2005, 2006 and 2007 and again in 2009.

Colleges

The university is split into four different colleges: College of Arts, Humanities and Law, College of Medicine, Biological Sciences and Psychology, College of Science and Engineering and College of Social Science.

Population

At the end of 2009 the University of Leicester had 21,628 registered students of which 10,971 were undergraduate and 10,657 were postgraduate. The institution also had 8,902 distance learning students. It also had 763 full-time academic, 43 part-time academic staff in addition to 385 full-time research staff and 50 part-time research staff.

With the fall of Constantinople in 1453 to the Ottoman Turks the Byzantine Empire came to an end. But cracks had been appearing in the empire long before its final capture thanks to a mix of internal economic instability, reduced military capability and an increasing number of external enemies.

Internal instability came in the form of the rise in nobility throughout Asia Minor after 1000 A.D. What had been an area of tax paying free peasants who were given land in return for military service became one controlled by nobles who gradually enserfed these small farm owning peasants reducing not only the empire's tax base but its army as well.

The reduction in the empire's army meant it had to rely more and more on foreign mercenaries, while less taxation resulted in a declining navy forcing it to rely on foreign city states such as Venice to fight its naval battles. In return it offered Venice free trading rights within Constantinople which enabled the Italians to sell goods at a cheaper rate than the Byzantines reducing the empire's income yet further.

Externally the empire faced problems too in the form of the Turks who were invading its eastern frontiers. A heavy defeat at Manzikert in 1071 A.D at the hands of the Seljuk Turks saw the empire lose much of Asia Minor, while in the west it faced a new threat in the form of western powers such as invading Norman forces and the Italian city states which now controlled much of the Byzantine economy. A schism between the eastern Orthodox and the western Roman Catholic churches in 1054 only exacerbated the problems leading to mistrust and animosity. This exploded in 1182 when the Byzantines massacred thousands of Italians living in Constantinople. In 1204 the Fourth Crusade was redirected towards Constantinople on the orders of the Venetians and the city was sacked and captured by the western powers. Recovered by the Byzantines 60 years later the city and the empire was a shadow of its former self and was to last a further two hundred years. From 1300 A.D onwards the Ottoman Turks would push further into Byzantine lands until only the capital Constantinople remained. But in 1453 this too was to fall at the hands of the Turk Mehmet the Conqueror sealing the end of the 1000 year old Byzantine Empire.