I never realized what I was missing out on, my high school only offered a single civics/government class during our senior year and I was able to take the AP class. It was my first real exposure to anything government related and it changed my whole outlook, but friends in the regular class said it was basically a study hall.
It's wild to look back and realize how we all got exposed to such different levels of info. It should be required to have 2-3 years of civics/government just like with math, science, and english.