Can I ask about Big History? Do colleges regard Big History as equal weighting to World History? What did you like and dislike about Big History?
My daughter’s high school offers Big History in Grade 9 as an alternative to World History. It sounds stimulating and multi-disciplinary but it’s a fairly new course and I’m nervous about it!
If it’s What I think it is, which is like history from the Big Bang onwards, it’s kind of a double edged sword. If it’s something else entirely, then by all means disregard what I have to say. First, it might be an interesting course to pop out at admissions officers and used in the additional information section to explain your daughter’s “well-roundedness.” However, it deviates from the traditional social science/history class so you should take that into consideration if there’s any rigid requirements for a particular university. But at the end of the day, academic exploration is something admissions officers encourage so I don’t think it would fault your daughter to take the class. I’d let her decide on this, as it’s ultimately her choices that matter when it comes to colleges anywa.
Yes, you are on the right lines with the course description. We really haven’t explored individual colleges or even what type of course she wants to take so I have no idea if the Big History would open or close any doors.
Just Googled it. Seems like it’s Big Bang to the present. World History probably covers evolution/early man/Mesopotamia to the present. I’ve never honestly heard of Big History, so it would definitely be a unique course. I don’t believe colleges would hold it against your daughter or anything like that; however I can see this being controversial among other parents in the school district.
Possibly find some students who are taking/have taken Big History at the school and ask them about it. See what they have to say!
I took it in 9th grade as an alternative to world history as well.
I was part of the first class at my school to take the pilot course, and they told us it would just be an alternative to world history. I believe they were also considering changing it to an honors course or some sort of elective, but nothing really changed apart from it being a world history alternative. College’s may like it a bit better since its a different course, but also the difference between them could be insignificant.
I overall really enjoyed the course and have no regrets with taking it. The students seemed overall more motivated than in an average class and there was a lot of in class discussion. I heard a lot of people in another school in my district dropped it during the year I took it, because of a bad teacher though.
The best part of the course is probably the content, its so different from a traditional history course, but I think its better because you learn about how the universe becomes more complex and how many things had to happen to get to where we are now.
More so than other history classes there was an emphasis on creativity and essay writing which i thought was great.
There was also a lot of science we ended up being exposed to which ended up helping in other classes later. Its not in depth, but we learned some basic astronomy, earth science, chemistry, and biology concepts.
But of course by taking it, you don’t get to learn nearly as much world history. That probably won’t be much of an issue unless your planning on taking AP World History.
There actually wasn’t very much I didn’t like, at least in my experience. Sometimes the essays felt too specific and forced, but the problems would probably vary from different schools and the way they teach it.
But I would definitely recommend taking it. It was interesting and probably one of the more memorable courses I’ve taken.
Big History is more of a “concept” history course and it’s more interdisciplinary (involving psychology, environmental science, geology, and biology), so it implies your daughter has a good grasp of chronology and basics already and enjoys this “stemy social science”. Check what periods are covered, if it’s only “dawn of time to end of prehistory”, or if it covers more than that.
Here are pretty good examples:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPggkvB9_dc&list=PL8dPuuaLjXtMczXZUmjb3mZSU1Roxnrey&index=6
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oy2XJMczUNc&index=7&list=PL8dPuuaLjXtMczXZUmjb3mZSU1Roxnrey