Higher History Essay Help

I'm considering choosing either AH History or English. Could you recommend the easiest/ most interesting? Thanks


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Hi there! I'm going to try and reply to this now

Generally, choosing either AH English or History depends on your interests. I absolutely loved English at Higher and I was genuinely interested in it but I always found it much harder than History. Whereas, I thought Higher History was a little easy but to be honest, I wasn't that interested - it was just something I learned and wrote about. Therefore, I ended up choosing my three strongest subjects (including AH Spanish) - the ones I thought would be the least troublesome and interesting as well as doing them with my friends. AH English was a must because, like I said, I found it to be an amazing subject and I was considering it at university; I really enjoyed Higher Spanish and considered a degree in it as well so I took the AH; I found Higher History somewhat easy, my friends were taking it and Higher was kind of interesting... But, AH History was a huge mistake.

I really, really didn't enjoy AH History - the amount of things you have to take down is immense. It was really ridiculous at how much knowledge we needed per topic. In AH we studied Germany and about 15 years yet those years felt huge! I just hated going to that class as it was so tiring and boring. Moreover, I hated revising for it or even writing essays. Now, I know what you're thinking: who likes essay writing? Generally, I don't but at least I had interest in my English texts and essay questions and I tried to interpret it my own way and be sophisticated/creative in my responses. AH History, however, was just something I wanted to get out of the way. I hated it. However, I have to admit that AH History gave me some good skills like taking lectures notes for university or taking footnotes down. Furthermore, the amount of things covered in AH History is probably more than what I've covered at university so far - so in that sense, AH History makes the amount of work I've done at university not so bad.

However, that was simply because I didn't enjoy History. A friend of mine loved Higher History and took AH, and she also did Higher English but didn't like it as much and then dropped AH. She did better than me at AH History and for her, it was really interesting and doable; but, she dropped AH English because she felt like she couldn't do it at all. She hated English. It honestly depends on your personal preference.

I will now talk about my preference of English. I loved Higher; the creative writing folio was so good and interesting and I remember I spent hours if not days and weeks on it! Furthermore, I loved studying and analysing the novels, dramas and poetry. For me, class debates and discussion on literature was unparalleled - it was so interesting and mentally stimulating! I was genuinely looking forward to writing my AH English dissertation! I had dozens of ideas of what I could do it on! Additionally, I was really excited to find out the authors we were covering in class. Eventually, we did Tennessee Williams and I was so happy and ecstatic It was a blast! Janice Galloway...not-so hahaha But, studying her novels was an experience in itself! Moreover, I was looking forward to AH English Creative Writing and enjoying that class too! All in all, I was genuinely excited for AH English and it was great too - I looked forward to the classes, discussions and books. Having said that, I did have a lot of problems throughout the year (akin to depression I think) which didn't help me much and even made it so that I detested English at one point and stopped trying. But, at the end, no matter what, I never did badly in English - it was always my strong subject!

Having said everything, honestly do something that you're genuinely interested in. The dissertation is terrifying at first - I hated writing my History one and I found it so hard; yet, my English one was easier to write especially at times when I struggled as I was able to persevere! I'm kind of glad though that I did AH History as it prepared me for university especially with taking lecture notes, footnoting and organisation of notes in general. However, it was a very painful yet nostalgic experience now that I think about it. I loved AH English and although it didn't help me as much with taking lecture notes, it sure did teach me how to write good essays, some footnoting and organising my notes.

Do what you enjoy and genuinely look forward to is my advice! If both seem good (as they initially did to me), maybe imagine what you could see yourself doing at university or your spare time? The reason I say this is because either or will take up a lot of motivation and spare time.

If you need any more information/advice regarding anything I can help you with, don't hesitate to ask!