The History of the Pacific by Jozie

The History of the Pacific by Jozie - December 2016 Scholarship Essay

Recently, the school accomplishment that I am the most proud of is the fact that I passed my Pacific History course with flying colors. This is one of my proudest moments in my college career because Pacific History is by far the hardest History course that I have ever taken. As a history major, I have taken numerous history courses, from United States History to Hawaiian history to European history. Out of all these classes, Pacific history is the only course that covers 1/3 of the entire planet.

Given, the Pacific is indeed an ocean, but within that ocean, there are thousands of islands where pacific islanders have settled and created a life. Just within the Pacific, there are three main divisions: Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia. Within these divisions, there are vast differences between the language, culture, and politics.

What made this course so hard wast the fact that we weren't being taught about one nation--or even one group of nations. No, in this course we learned about a different culture every week--just a small fraction of the thousands of land settlements within the Pacific! I can honestly say that acing this class has made me more sensitive and educated about the vast cultures within the ocean that I live in.