IB History or Geography?

[BeaverDuck]

Hi !

I'm starting IB next year and so far my choices are:

Biology HL

English Lit. HL

History/Geography HL

Spanish Ab Initio

French B

Maths Studies

I'm having trouble deciding on my group 3 subject and would like some opinions on history and geography at higher level. I've heard history is heaps of work, but I mean if it's enjoyable, it pays off in the end, right? Then some people say geography is incredibly boring, but much easier than history. Kind of confused :/

[Award Winning Boss]

History. Be a man.

[Emmi]

History is so much more interesting than geography. Geography is just "hi I'm a map, draw lines on me" whereas in history you get to learn about all the reasons for why things happened the way they did, really cool guys, really awful guys but then you get to write essays telling everyone how bad they are, and overall just 100 times better than geography. Sure it's more work than geography, but it's better.

[milk]

I think geography is REALLY interesting and I would love if my school offered it. So I'd go for geography over history. You don't just learn about maps, though, you'll learn about environmental changes, food (option), and other interesting stuff. There is some math that goes along with geography, though, so if you don't like math, history might be the way to go.

[tank85]

Geographyyyyy!! Belive me it's not "hi I'm a map, draw lines on me" in fact I can't recall any time where I had to drew a map. Let me elaborate what geography is really about. To some extent you will be required to memorize a gazillion amount of fact/dates/statistics and theory just as in history. However you do learn a lot of interesting stuff and it also helps you to evaluate everything from different perspectives, also you get to learn about current issues.

In terms of grades, I did not take hist HL but IMO geography isn't a a subject where you will easily get a 7 because question (Especially P3) are extremely vague and IB requires specific details. On a general assumption getting a 7 in geo is easier than obtaining one in hist.

In terms of helping you make a decision, spend some time of your summer looking at both geo and hist syllabus and see what you are most interested on learning.

Hope it helps

[flinquinnster]

I happen to do History and Geography, and I have to admit I prefer Geography I have to say though that in terms of the merits of each subject, I think it's fairly balanced. Depends on your temperament and skills.

History: Be prepared to immerse yourself in historical facts. You know that there are some things you can memorise without effort? You have to prepare yourself to memorise some things you love, and some things that you just really don't want to do at that particular moment. Also, there is this popular misconception that you are fine in history if you memorise your textbooks - true fact, based on personal experience - you won't be. History requires you to synthesise your understanding of the photocopies/study guides your teacher gives you, and to be able to form a fairly sophisticated argument quickly, legibly and coherently in an exam. You have to understand the dynamics that are at play in events and actions, not just one surface, superficial reason that's popular. Empathy is required at some points in the course! You have to know your stuff, and be able to believe in it enough to present it as a valid view of what has gone on in the past. I am actually considering dropping to History SL (depends on how maths goes...) because I think that there's no need to double the content (as would happen in HL) to appreciate history more - though obviously, this is debatable. You have to prepare yourself for quite a lot of learning, both in terms of content and argumentation skills.

Geography: I think that Geography is a lot more contemporarily relevant than history (surprise surprise). I think Geography is a great subject with the scope to investigate different social dynamics that act on societies and govern how we function. In that way, I guess it's similar to History, almost. And to all those above who said that Geography is about drawing maps, it is most definitely NOT. In fact, I still have no ability to read/draw maps - the "skills" part (map-drawing, hard-core graphs etc.) of the Geography syllabus got taken out in the new syllabus for exams post-2011. The IB Geography syllabus is pretty great I think, with a large focus on social geography that governs societies and humans, as opposed to soil and inanimate objects - though you can change that balance depending on the option topics chosen. It's also fairly relaxed right now, and I hope it doesn't get worse, honestly! Though by no means a guaranteed 7

So I would say go and find copies of the syllabus for History and Geography! They're all out there somewhere. The syllabuses/syllabi give a very general overview (too general, perhaps) but enough to give a good idea of what's going on in subject. Both subjects are great, so you should hopefully enjoy whatever you end up choosing.

[Shrivats Sanganeria]

In my opinion, geo seems way more interesting than history, but I think it really depends on which subject you would enjoy studying more.