Future Political Science Major, What AP Classes Should I Take?

preamble1776
Sun, 26 Jan 2014 20:19:58 +0000

I too am planning on majoring in Political Science and Philosophy and then eventually law school – I tried to tailor my APs to be somewhat related to what I planned to study in college – these are the courses I’ve taken that I believed were most conducive to what I wanted to study in college (I’m graduating this year) --

AP US History - good introduction to American political theory, conservatism, liberalism, capitalism, etc. Very challenging workload, however.
AP World History - Easier than U.S., World provides somewhat more of a comprehensive cultural and political backdrop of different nations other than the United States. You’ll probably touch upon some legislation and foreign policy in the United States later on in the course - but the main focus of the course is outside of North America and Europe.
AP English Language and Composition - Analysis of rhetoric. My teacher was a news and politics junkie, so a lot of the work we did had to do with analyzing political campaign advertisements, speeches given by Congressmen, political pundits and satirists, etc. so all in all, extremely relevant in my case, though this is not a uniform curriculum by any means.
AP Environmental Science - Spent about two months studying Environmental law which was good because I’m deciding between Environmental Law and Constitutional Law – a lot of Environmental is based in humanities and political science rather than pure physical or natural science.
AP English Literature and Composition - An extension of AP English Language but based in fictional literature – my writing has improved exponentially because of this course.
AP Calculus AB - I chose AP Calculus over AP Statistics despite not being a math buff because I know that colleges, regardless of your major, tend to prefer Calc over Stats when you’re given the option. I’m doing pretty well in Calc – a lot of it is just reasoning and logic, I’d definitely recommend it. Stats isn’t necessarily a cake walk for everyone, and a lot of people (the majority actually), struggle with it at my school.
AP United States Politics and Government - The course title is self explanatory, lol.

If I could go back to my Freshman year; I probably would have tried to take AP Latin Vergil (not offered at our school and online Latin is not my cup of tea) – AP European History, and perhaps AP Psychology.

But** – keep in mind, your classes in high school do not necessarily have to reflect your intended major in college. High School should be an opportunity for you to discover interests you didn’t know you had - going in with the tunnel visioned idea that you want to be XYZ and you want to major in XYZ will only prevent you from taking classes that you might love. I seriously considered dropping math altogether my senior year – the decision to take Calc was pretty last minute and it turned out to be one of my favorite classes. Try taking a variety of classes that you think are interesting even if they aren’t necessarily related to Poli Sci at all.