Class selections for the upcoming year will be due May 1, and many rising sophomores must decide between taking AP Human Geography or AP World History. Since both are Advanced Placement history classes, students must look into the differences in content, curriculum, and relevance for future endeavors.
Students that take either AP Human Geography or AP World History will receive a 1.0 GPA boost and then must take the AP exam to receive college credit based on their score. AP Human Geography and AP World History are oftentimes students’ first AP class, which can seem very daunting. However, teachers of these classes are aware of this and have curated an environment to get students accustomed to this elevated style of learning.
“[To prepare students] we spend a lot of time structuring how to do things,” AP World History teacher Kelly Rosati said. “For instance, we teach how to write the different types of essays and go through it with them and for the first essay they write, it’s a formative. After that, they write for a grade and we spend the whole year practicing writing and test questions.”
Each class has very distinct focuses that explore vastly different aspects of human society and history. In AP World History, there is more emphasis on writing with the requirement of learning how to understand and respond to Document Based Questions, Long Essay Questions, and Short Answer Questions. On the other hand, the AP Human Geography curriculum leans more on interpreting data, patterns, relationships, and applying theoretical concepts to societies.
“The main focus of AP Human Geography is looking at different topics, like population, culture, agriculture, and urbanization and seeing how it affects humans,” AP Human Geography teacher Emily Thompson said. “We look at the development of countries and compare them to other parts of the world, focusing on the themes of society, it’s really a social science.”
A big factor when selecting between these contrasting curricula is the alignment with students interests and academic preferences.
“Both are inherently very different classes,” AP World History and AP Human Geography teacher Zachary Collins said. “If you actually really do like just history, then I would highly recommend AP World. A lot of kids avoid [AP] World for the amount of writing, and I would like to stress that history writing is so different from honors and higher English classes.”
These courses serve as a foundation for future AP classes, ensuring students are prepared for the next history classes they take. It’s important to note that the choice of studies taken sophomore year may influence the sequence of history courses taken throughout high school.
“As a freshman, you learn ancient history; if you take AP Human Geo next, you are completely neglecting yourself from world history, everything that happened in the world to modern day like the french revolution or the rise of all these cool cultures,” Mr. Collins said. “I think when you take Human Geo, it locks you out of taking APUSH [AP United States History] because APUSH without world history will be a tough road ahead of you. But, that doesn’t mean AP Human Geo is the easy way out.”
It is also important to note that AP Human Geography can be taken at any grade level. As a result, it is a common option for students to take both or take AP Human Geography later on in high school.
“I took AP Human Geo as an elective my junior year because I wanted to take another history class, and I heard it was an interesting class,” senior Natalie Stock said. “I liked it a lot and it wasn’t too much of a workload writing wise compared to what I have heard about other AP history classes.”
On the other hand, AP World History is a more rigorous class and can generally look better on a college application for a wider range of majors.
“I was recommended for AP World and I also took it because I heard that colleges would be more impressed with it.” Senior Daniel Mica said. “For the college I am going to and since I am a business major, it is going to test me out of a lot of my history gen eds. [General Education courses]”
When choosing which class to take, students should put into consideration what their intended career path is and decide whether the course content aligns with their future goals, enhances their skills, and provides knowledge that will be beneficial in the long run.
“In general, both classes are great for college and are useful to broaden your overall knowledge of how our world works,” Ms. Thompson said. “You can’t go wrong taking either.”
