I'm going to start off by saying that if I was able to get through this class then so can you. And let me tell you, I struggled. Despite this, AP Euro was one of my favorite classes this year. At least it was favorite class in school, not necessarily outside of school with the homework. Also, don't think this class is going to be a joke class taught by a teacher that doesn't care about teaching. Mrs. Salisbury truly cares about her job and her students. She makes sure that AP Euro is an actual AP class and not one of those joke ones that everyone takes for an easy A. It might be very challenging, as an AP course should be, but it's definitely extremely beneficial and I'm so glad that I decided to stick with it. It was one of those classes that I was looking forward to basically daily (except when we had a reading check that day). But let me tell you that after the exam was over for Euro, I felt as if a huge weight was taken off of my shoulders. It may have been one of my favorite classes but it was also a ton of work. Time management really is key in order to do well. I honestly didn't really start managing my time that well until about January or February but it was beyond worth it (also note that this was likely because I had a lab period second semester so that also helped a ton). It was one of those classes that I know will stick with me for a long time.
AP Euro had a bunch of fun day activities that were really helpful and some even involved food (who can say no to that). One of my favorite activities that we did was the Congress of Vienna activity where we were split into groups, chose a country, and had to settle an agreement over the obtaining of territory within Europe with some of the other countries. Each country had a set point system so if they obtained specific areas, then they'd get a sum of points and whoever had the most points after the agreement was settled won. It was an activity of manipulation, as you didn't let anyone outside of your group know how many points you would obtain from each area and you'd fool the others around you to think that they were the ones benefiting from your plan when in actuality, you did. So that's how my group won anyway. Sometimes you just have to manipulate people in order to get the job done correctly. I also really enjoyed the first project that we had to do when we chose a figure from history, without really having any prior background on them, and connecting them to Machiavelli's ideas of a what a good ruler should look like. I believed that it allowed for everyone to take a brief glimpse on what they would later study in history. It allowed for people to understand specific different parts of history so that everyone would have some random knowledge about a specific subject that no one else would really know. I also really liked how some of the LEQs and DBQs in class were partner ones just used for an outline, allowing for all of us to get used to the typically structure.
However, also regarding the LEQs and the DBQs, I disliked how we never really were able to do ones by ourselves towards the end of the year, close to the AP exam, as I felt less comfortable with those two pieces of the exam than the multiple choice and SAQs, which we completed those for all of the reading checks. Speaking of reading checks, I feel as though it would've been more beneficial for the reading checks to have been on multiple chapters more often as the actual exam focuses more on history as a whole and the overall concepts rather than specific random pieces of information. Those reading checks were torture. If you got over an 80 on one of those, you were a god(dess). I only managed to accomplish that on one reading check and I'm pretty sure it was one of the first ones we took. But the good thing about those terrible grades was that Salz was nice enough to let us stay after to correct them and increase our grades by half of the points we lost (if she didn't I'd assume most of us would be failing or close to it).
Honestly my only advice besides managing your time is to accept that you're going to fail. It personally took me a while to realize it, as I'd get really upset over any grade under an 80 since I wasn't used to such low grades, but I was able to realize that you'll only succeed if you understand your failures. The reading check quiz corrections were the prime example of understanding failures, to which I'm still incredibly grateful for, as you'd go back to each question you got wrong and figure out the answer which you needed evidence to support (sorry, no making up random excuses as you got the answer from a friend - you'd need a page number or some evidence from the passage). Another thing, actually read the entire section for the reading checks since sometimes I'd stop ten pages before the end of the chapter as I'd given up and waited until the last minute to read the section and take notes. But you all will be fine. If you actually read all of this, I'm impressed and you definitely have potential to do well with a long attention span.
And finally, as you'll hear a lot this year, good luck and godspeed!
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