Ah, the benefits of a pre "No Child Left Behind" education. Back then it was social studies and included psychology, sociology, comparative philosophies including ancient philosophies, principles of democracy, and the usual set of histories.

I went to a pretty small school that couldn't offer many electives; psychology was one of the only -ology electives.

I had WA state history in 8th grade, ancient history in 9th, AP World in 10th, AP US in 11th, and AP American Government in 12th. Students who didn't take APs studied the same subjects.

Draug, is that really better? What did you not have to make room for all of the soft sciences?

Only 3000 total in my school but West Chester was starting it's boom in the early 80s. Now they have 2 high schools that each graduate 2000 per year while my class was the first to break 750.

Wow, grade 8 being state history seems to be common in the states. What exactly do you learn in state history, like I don't see how such a small plot of land could have enough history for a full course, lol

Economics is an optional course in both grade 11 (Micro) and grade 12 (macro), however I didn't include it cause I thought we were talking about just history.

@ghug ... the district's public high school usually has about 200 middle schoolers from its three middle schools take a class or two a week each year. It's because of these classes I'm at a private school, because the public school was just a bad environment.

My history classes:
7th (I was a year ahead, so effectively 8th grade): US history
8th: African Imperialism at the high school (since I took 8th grade history in 7th, it was an easy option)
9th: Africa (much better class than the aforementioned, but it was mostly centered around pre-WW2 times), Middle East
10th: Euro
11th: AP US History, Government (elective)
12th: Micro Econ, AP World (elective), African American Literature (effectively a history class, though English credit), AP Government (elective), America in the 1960s (Civil Rights Movement, Vietnam, etc.)

I didn't take a math class this year so I could take an extra history elective. An hour less of homework every day and an hour more of class I care about. More people should try that...

I find statistics as a senior is a better use of your time than an extra history class, but that's just me.

Took it as a junior. I did precalc sophomore year and that's the highest math class I took.

It was easily the most applicable math course I took though.

I wish I had stats in high school. I took 12 hours in college and loved it, easily the most applicable math I've ever had as well.

The psych, soc, and PoD courses were one quarter each, so one year (senior) for them Freshman was military history, comparative philosophy and ancient philosophies. Sophmore and Junior I skipped social sciences (only was required a minor in it and had too many other things I wanted to take like Latin, Chem, and two bands plus Trig, Circular Functions, and Analytical Geometry/pre Calculus).

I only took it because my school was out of calculus for me, and nobody really took it seriously (teacher included), but I learned a good amount just listening to the half-assed lectures and taking the AP.

I wish I had harder math available for me in high school. Calc II was as far as I got (no stats). It came back to bite me in the ass in college.

The Chicago Public School system where I went until the mid 1970s had history text books that ended just after World War II. Out of date material is nothing especially in schools that can't afford newer material.

@gf, I'm pretty sure that happens to everyone. I just came out a bit further ahead and plunged into a harder calculus series that is very painful.

Yeah, prob and stats was a good class in HS. I took 6 years of Mathematics as that was my intended fall back career at the time. Turns out my one programming class turned into my career. :-)

since when is economics a history course?

I didn't take statistics in high school and I do regret it.

Well, econ is as much a philosophy, so a social science I guess.

Economics, at least at my school, was considered a business course.

"Only 3000 total in my school..."

lol, try only 300...

We actually had quite a variety of history classes at my school. We had the standard World/US history, but also Government, and several 1/2 year history courses including Civil War maybe 3 others I don't remember.

How much more than Calc II do you want taught in HS? That's already quite a lot, imho. I placed out of Calc I & Calc II, but I retook Calc II in college to make sure I'd be prepared. I did fine in math until Physics 605. Not sure how doing more math in HS would have helped.

I have friends who were taught all the way through differential equations in high school. I feel like they were far more prepared.

Maybe. At some point, though, I think you need to stop cramming college into hs classes.

I took 2 years of AP Calculus and a year of AP Stat, which amounts to three quarters of college calc and one quarter of stat, at least at my school. I then elected to take the math department's special "oh, you think you're hot shit, do you?" calc series, which is equally unpleasant for everyone. I feel like differential equations would have been nice to have in high school, but I honestly don't think they would help that much.

Yeah....my hs offered AP Calc *or* AP Stat during senior year.

They wouldn't be helpful for everyone, but for someone who knows they want to go into a math heavy field? Very helpful

@Abge ... the more college I can get out of the way in high school, the less I pay for summer classes. As shitty and robotic as AP curriculums are, they are incredibly helpful.

for me,

6th - world history
7th - Texas history
8th - US history
9th - world geography (actually a good class, but because of the teacher and my interest mostly)
10th - world history (horrible, horrible teacher and class, I barely learned in spite of intense interest
11th - AP US hist
12th - Gov/Econ

Pretty shitty history education, all told, especially world history.

By region, we basically were taught:

In the Americas, there were Mayans and Aztecs, even though we treat them like they're the same, and the Inca. Cortez killed the Aztecs and Pizarro killed the Inca.

In Africa, there was this thing called "Great Zimbabwe" where they had big stone ruins and some porcelain from China. After that Europe took it over and taught them how to write and shit.

In China, there were a shit ton of dynasties, then Genghis Khan took over, and that's all we know. Also Confucius is from China.

In India there were also a bunch of kingdoms and wars and empires, and the Muslims invaded once and so did Alexander the Great. Buddhism is from India.

In the Middle East they invented farming and writing and cities, and then nothing happened until Judaism, then Christianity, then Islam all got founded one after the other. Also ancient Egypt was over there on the side.

And then the rest is oversimplified European history.

None of it makes it much past World War One.

All i have to say is thank god for wikipedia.

2 years of AP Calc? I took 1 year of AP Calc, which completely covered the content of Calc I and Calc II at my University.

bo, college really isn't suppose to be a race to check courses off a list, though. You're supposed to be learning. Also, why would you have to take summer classes?