AP-ocalypse: Surviving as a Freshman

AP Human Geography (AP HUG) is a college-level introductory course that examines the spatial and temporal patterns of the human population, their cultures, and their interaction with the environment. It is a class mixed with history and current events. Taking the class as a freshman initially felt extremely overwhelming because the assignments and projects constantly assigned to me seemed to lack any relevance to the real world. Adapting to high school was already a difficult process, especially with an AP class I hadn’t even applied to, and I experienced many struggles and undeniable hardships. However, after taking the class for a year and taking the AP exam, I realized that the work prepared me in many ways that I did not expect, and ultimately, I am grateful for the opportunity.

Just a couple of days before my freshman year of high school began, a friend I had met during Camp Stuy messaged me, saying that the schedule for my first year of high school was out on Talos. Unexpectedly nervous, I kept reloading Talos. However, no matter which Wi-Fi I was connected to or which device it was from, Talos just wouldn’t budge. I blamed the low quality of internet I had at the time in Uzbekistan. I waited, and waited, and waited, all to no avail. I finally got back to the United States five days before school started, and I was already dreading the constant homework I would have to complete and the tests I would have to take. 

The day before the first day of school, I was finally able to log in. I had never seen a high school schedule before. There were so many things that confused me, like why a 10th period didn’t exist for me but did for my friend, and why I had gym and lab in the same period—how was that even possible? One other thing had caught my attention: I was enrolled in a class named “AP Human Geography.” Confusion and excitement ran through my veins as I realized I was officially starting the next chapter of my academic journey.

The next day, I walked up to Stuyvesant High School. I waited for my friend outside, and we walked into our homeroom together. My Big Sibs took some time explaining our schedules, and after a while, all the freshmen were off to their very first classes. My third-period class was AP Human Geography. I had no idea what to expect. I knew very little about APs and didn’t even know how I got in since I hadn’t applied. A couple of days later, I was given my first homework assignment, which was to annotate the course description of the class on Perusall. As I was reading the course description, my mind was full of questions. I had always been intrigued by Geography. Like many others, I believed that the class was going to be solely about maps and countries, so I held the class in the same regard as any other social studies class. However, I quickly noticed that the class was very different from any other social studies class I’ve taken before.

For the first few months, the class was very boring, simply because of the fact that every day was the same. It became a routine: take notes, watch videos in class, and do Perusall homework. However, the workload was very heavy, requiring a type of work ethic I wasn’t used to. I remember doing homework until nearly midnight every day. The part that frustrated me the most about the homework was the amount of reading that was required. Sometimes it would be four pages, and sometimes 10. On top of all that reading, I was also required to annotate the reading five times. The hardest thing about the class, however, wasn’t the mundane homework assignments—it was the tests. For every exam, I remember studying the night before but having no idea what to expect since one unit contained so much information. No matter how much I studied, there would always be a couple of questions that would surprise me. The class was also very vocabulary-based, and memorizing every single vocabulary term was crucial.

The heavy workload continued, but my boredom faded when I received my first-ever project for the class. The project required me to partner up with someone, explore a part of the city, and make a poster about it. We had to note the cultural landscape of the place and how cultures from all over the world have changed New York City over time. I partnered up with one of my friends, and we decided to focus on Koreatown, located in Manhattan. Overall, the project was enjoyable. My friend and I ate traditional food, visited Korean skin care stores and Korean entertainment shops, took a cute photo in a photobooth, and even conducted street interviews. In the end, the project enhanced my understanding of the cultural landscape relating to human geography. At the end of the first semester, we received our grade for the project: 104%. We even came in as the runner-up for the best project in the class. This project was the first that allowed me to truly appreciate the hard work going into my classes, as well as become aware of my geographical surroundings. 

As the second semester began, the annotation homeworks dwindled, and the amount of AP review started increasing. Throughout the second semester, I did another three projects—all of which I dreaded, in contrast to my first project. The first project of the second semester was to create a brochure about housing in Mumbai to increase our understanding of infrastructure. The second project, which involved creating two videos explaining the definition of sequent occupance and Gross Domestic Product (GDP), was to remind us of the definitions of important vocabulary terms. The third project was meant to review for the AP test, so it was helpful. The dreadful part, however, was that my teacher made it due five days before the actual AP. While I could’ve been studying, I ended up creating a Google Slides presentation instead.

Though I initially found these projects time-consuming and useless, I quickly changed my mind on the day of the AP exam. I walked into the cold and colorless gym that had rows of small desks and slow school computers we were expected to type on. The day before the AP, I flooded myself with review, rewatched videos, took notes, and relearned everything from day one. As the clock ticked away, I kept overthinking, running through all of the worst possibilities in my head. However, during the actual test, I noticed that all the information I learned by completing these projects proved vital. Around the beginning of the test, a number of questions were asked about the infrastructure of a city. Because of the brochure I did on the infrastructure of Mumbai, I was able to connect the things I had learned along the way to answer those questions. Cultural landscape was a large topic on the test, and thanks to the project I did on Koreatown, I was able to fly past the free-response questions. Then a question about the definition of sequent occupance popped up. Suddenly, I remembered my video project. The economy was also an important part of the test, where the term GDP came in handy. Although I hated doing these projects, in the end, it became helpful as all these significant terms were now embedded into my brain. Suddenly, those projects I loathed were worth it. Right after the test ended, instead of rolling my eyes at all of the projects and assignments I had done throughout the year, I was now grateful and decided to use this experience to put effort into my future class projects.

After the test was over, I experienced situations in which the things I learned in AP HUG were beneficial in other subjects. In Biology, we were introduced to the population distribution model. As my peers and I were completing an assignment on the model, I was able to finish early since this model was a significant part of AP HUG and even showed up as a stimulus on a free-response question on the AP test. I had already known everything there was to know. In Geometry, we were introduced to the population density formula. However, I already knew this formula since it was one of the most important formulas in AP HUG and was even the main focus of a multiple-choice question.

Looking back, I wish I hadn’t taken the class for granted. Despite experiencing hardships in the beginning, the class ended up proving its value by showing its relevance to other core subjects such as math, science, and the real world. I’m just glad I now have experience and know what to expect in the upcoming years. Throughout the year, there were many times when I wished I had taken Global History like the rest of my friends. But, after successfully completing the class, I wouldn’t trade it for the world. This was such an interesting and long journey with constant ups and downs, that in the long run, helped me understand different parts of the world in different ways, and helped me adapt to unfamiliar circumstances.