The Effect of History by Abigail

The Effect of History by Abigail - February 2025 Scholarship Essay

Ever since starting school, history has been my favorite subject. Not only does it focus on specific events in the past, but it focuses on the cultural, political, and socio-economic aspects that caused and led up to those past, world-altering events. These topics have been especially interesting to me in recent years due to discourse surrounding immigrants, the global economy, and society as a whole. This love influenced me to, at the end of junior year, investigate setting up an AP World History class for the following year. With the help of my former U.S History 1 teacher, I was able to set up a class of 17 seniors, including myself, and my former world history teacher from freshman year. Setting up this class wasn’t easy, though. Since my high school doesn’t require seniors to take a history class their last year, it was difficult finding other students with similar interests and a thirst to learn about the real and unfiltered version of world history we learned three years ago.
Since the start of the school year, I’ve learned many things, from ancient civilizations, to urbanization, The Green Revolution, and industrialization. It has blown my mind how much humanity has accomplished, especially since during our 200,000 year existence we’ve only just started to become truly advanced. These lessons have helped me develop a direction for what I’d like to pursue education-wise in the future. Although my major may not be history specifically, history will undoubtedly support my pursuit of a degree in international relations. In order to accurately understand the concentration I will be focusing on, I will need the basics and background of a region’s development from the beginning to modern-day. AP World not only provides those basics, but it goes much deeper into a region’s culture than any standard world history class would.
Additionally, due to the AP World History covering topics on Latin American and Spanish culture, I’ve grown more fond of learning Spanish, which I've been studying since 6th grade. I used to dread Spanish class every single day due to it being filled with only vocabulary, grammar, and boring, made-up scenarios. However, this year Spanish has become more about culture, problems associated with Spanish-speaking countries, and history. Learning about heroic figures such as Simón Bolívar and infamous figures such as Pablo Escobar have persuaded me to dig deeper into these roots during college and eventually pursue a minor in Spanish, which kills two birds with one stone due to there being a language requirement when studying international relations.
History has not only allowed me to gain appreciation for different cultures at a time where knowledge is power and empathy for immigrants is important, but it has made me passionate about learning. If not for history, I’m unsure whether I would have had a favorite subject throughout elementary, middle, and high school, and I’m completely sure I wouldn’t have had a clue what major I’d be applying to in college.