Sis Let Me Tell You About AP Euro

Let me tell you a story,

It all began when a nervous sophomore me was deciding what classes to take for his junior year. “It's the biggest and most important year of your high school career” they told me. The day before course selections where due I was sitting in my room, having a full mental breakdown (as I usually do). I had in front of me a schedule that had three AP classes, and the rest of them were honors. I felt like I genuinely couldn’t do it. One of my first ideas was to scratch off AP Euro, and go to Honors World History, because from the rumors that people told me, that would be one of my hardest classes. In my head I was telling myself that I wouldn’t have the time to labor over a book for hours on end, study constantly for quizzes everyday, and have all the projects in class done by the assigned date, but this my friends is far from the truth of AP Euro. In the Seekonk High School hallways, the truth has frequently been manipulated, but all those doubts I had were not an accurate representation of the class. So let's go through some tips on how to survive, what I liked, what I disliked, and the reality of the beast that is AP Euro.

Reality/ Tips:

• While reading is usually assigned every night it's not as rigorous as you may think. At most its a chapter in length, but I won’t lie to you they may be 30 pages long. However, knowing that the chapters are longer, Salz will give you two to three days to read it.
  
  
• DO NOT PROCRASTINATE IT WILL BE YOUR DOWNFALL AND YOU WILL NOT FINISH, AND THEN CRY.
  
  
• Quizzes and tests aren’t as frequent as you may think. What the rumors tell is that in AP European History you have some sort of assessment every day, but in reality you have a reading check (that you are aware off- it's not a pop quiz) the day after your reading is due.
  
  
• The homework you have in this class is very simple it’s all reading, reading, and reading. Very rarely will you have extensive essays to write, or hour long written work. Most of the time you’ll be reading, taking notes, or annotating the chapters in the book or a primary source document.
  
  
• Which brings me to a side note: make sure you do your reading because Salz doesn’t get mad very easily but one of her biggest pet peeves is when she tries to start a lecture in class, and no one has any clue of the topic because no one read the assigned work. This my friends will cause hell fire for your lives.
  
  
• Don’t be afraid to ask Salz for help. Seriously, there have been numerous times where I had to go away for something spontaneous, I was absent, or I just couldn’t do the work for legitimate reasons. All I had to do was talk to her about it, and she (as the understanding and kind human being she is) gave me an extension. She’s not a monster people, she's a kind and loving teacher that will go to all lengths to make sure you are comfortable in her class, and understand the material. However this is a two way relationship and if you aren’t putting out work, or are being rude, she has the right to not give you help- should you need an extension. She’ll ask if your ok on your bad days, and will help ease the stresses you feel from other classes. She’s not a straightforward teacher that only cares for her class- she’ll mend her schedule around other events to make sure you can perform at your best.
  
  
• Finally, make sure you follow your schedule. The schedules in this class will be your holy grail- it’ll give you a full lay out of the unit, when assignments are due, what we do in class, etc. These schedules may be modified due to time constraints, or snow days, but a new copy will always be on google classroom. Use this schedule if you want to survive. Staple it to a binder. Take a picture of it on your phone, but follow it to stay organized.
  
  

Things I loved:

• I think we can all agree that history classes in the Seekonk educational system have been, for lack of better terms, lackluster. However, in this class was the first time I actually learned something in history that would stick in my mind. I remember so much, and it’s crazy when I think about how much time we had, to how much information we covered.
  
  
• I also loved that we had cushion grades, because those allowed me to stay focused on the information and not worry to much about my grades. Often times I get so caught up in getting a good grade, that I just memorize the information for an assessment and then it’s gone. With having cushion grades I could focus on the information and this was the first class ever where my grades weren’t my main concern.
  
  
• I really appreciated the quiz corrections for the purpose I mentioned above because it kept my average in line, but the information I learned from righting my wrongs helped me retain concepts, dates, and important people in European history.
  
  
• One thing I also appreciated, was the idea that class wasn’t always lecture based, and instead we did projects, and group work that wasn’t superfluous or boring, but rather interesting.
  
  
• Euro was always my break in the day, and even though some days prove to be more difficult than the rest, the atmosphere of the class, was something that I needed to alleviate my bad days, and glorify my good days.
  
  

Things I hated:

• I didn’t like the fact that sometimes we spent days on projects, and sometimes these projects such as the Congress of Vienna simulation, were really difficult to understand.
  
  
• Also there were times when the reading was way too intense to keep up with. I remember one week when we had to read like 60 pages in the text book in the matter of like four days, and those weeks where reading got be to much, I honestly just stopped reading, because my brain was on information overload.
  
  
• Sometimes we didn’t go over everything in the chapter properly, so there were times where I was still really confused on certain topics.
  
  

Things to suggest for change:

• Mrs. Salisbury I need to tell you that the class needs to drill and kill period 4. I think we just had so much reading due in such a short amount of time, and the reading was so politically dense that the information was not registering at all. For this period the class needs to have more diverse activities, and less intense lectures to help understand the concepts- which include the Soviet Union, WWI, WWII, Fascism, the Revolutions, etc.
  
  
• Surprising I really understood the Cold War so whatever we did for that needs to be applied to the rest of period 4.
  
  
• I think the class should also pull it back with how much time we spent on Communism. I know that it’s a recurring concept throughout the second half of European History, but it just felt like it showed up in every assignment, and in every chapter. I think we spent a lot of time talking about it, and this took time from explaining the actual events that were occurring. Like the whole Communist Manifesto project was a lot, but that’s all I would recommend in trying to go over Communism, because after that we did organizers, and class lectures solely on this -ism.
  
  
• The class needs to pace the reading out more, because these 30 pages chapters are hard enough, but it doesn’t help that the book was terribly written. I often fell asleep while reading a chapter, and then I fell behind because there wasn’t enough time before the next one was due.
  
  
• The reading checks where really rough at times, I’m not gonna lie. Sometimes the multiple choice was really difficult, and not understanding the chapter in the book because the book is trash played a role in this difficulty. I think students should have a day of lecture to understand the information before the reading check is given.
  
  

Other than that, this entire class was actually life changing, because I was able to learn so many new techniques on how to study, and not only that I learned more about myself as student which isn’t something that a textbook can teach you. Mrs. Salisbury is by far one of the best teachers I’ve ever had, and if I could make it (the constant stress ball who’s mental breakdowns are like clock work), than you can too.

Good Luck and God speed to the AP Euro class of 2018-2019...