Why Everybody Should Take Psychology in High School by Maria

Why Everybody Should Take Psychology in High School by Maria - June 2018 Scholarship Essay

Ever since ninth grade, I knew that I would end up taking IB psychology before I graduated. And I knew that when I did, it would probably turn out to be my favorite class of my entire high school experience.

As it turns out, that's exactly what happened. I am now done with all of high school and my IB psychology class. Which, as I predicted, was by far my favorite class. But not for the reasons I thought it would be.

I decided to take the class because it seemed as though that was the obvious thing to do. At my school, it is a class that is known as getting an easy A in. Everyone who ever took that class gave the teacher, who is infamously easygoing, rave reviews, in casual hallway conversations. As long as you do your homework and study a little the night before each test, it'll be one less class to worry about. Not to mention the GPA boost because of it being an AP class.

Now, here's the catch: I easily spent more time on my psychology homework every night than I did every other class. Not only that, but we took a test that was not multiple choice (all essay and short-answer based), and I found myself in my room, hunched over the Psychology textbook for hours studying before each one. I can't say the same for any other class, including math, my worst subject.

So if it's not the easy A I thought it was going to be, then why do I love it so much? I think the answer is simple: because I can relate to it.

Let's face it, unless you become a scientist, you'll probably never have to worry about Noble Gases, or how to find the mass of NH4Cl that sublimed, after you get your high school diploma. You'll most likely never be asked again about the relationship between the scarlet letter and Hester Prynne's identity. And I can almost guarantee you'll never have to know how to divide f(x)= 6X3^ - 19X^2 + 16X-4 by X-2 in the real world (unless you become a math teacher or something).

However, I do know that no matter what field you go into, you will need to know how to understand and communicate with people. You will need to know how to deal with all different types of people, and you will need to know why they act the way that they do. Everybody should know that. It is not something that can be learned in math class by multiplying polynomials, but at the same time, everybody, including mathematicians, need to know it.

For this reason, I loved IB psychology and I would encourage anyone and everyone to take it in high school, no matter what you are interested in. It may not be the easy A I thought it was going to be, but it was so much more than that and it was the only class I felt like I really learned things in that I will actually apply in the future.

And isn't that more important than a letter on a report card?