Unlike most, I took both AP Human Geography and AP European History before my AP U.S. class. While people commonly misconceive that AP Human Geography is a much easier course than AP Euro, I found that both classes take a considerable amount of effort and time. However, though people claim that both classes prepare students for the AP US History class, I can say that they are complete opposites in curriculum, leaving AP Euro the better class to prepare students.

When it comes to the differences between the courses, AP Human Geography has little to no history within the material. From my experience it’s more focused on the past and present demographics of different regions in the world. Since AP European History is more focused on historical topics, it prepared me for other future AP history tests far better than AP Human Geography.

For instance, in AP Euro we learn the European history, but also look into writing document based questions and answering College Board’s new multiple choice questions. The course in AP Human Geo. is limited and filled with pointless worksheets that only help with that specific course and not other AP classes like APUSH.

AP Human doesn’t prepare us for APUSH in terms of other skillsets unrelated to tests, such as note taking. AP Human Geo has no history and the notes are just packets filled with typed information.

In contrast, the notes I take in AP US are entirely hands on and force me to read the textbook and go further in depth with the material, rather than simply writing down facts.
AP Euro did exactly what APUSH does when it comes to notes, making me feel more prepared. The two courses have almost the exact same format of each chapter so I fully understand the content that is presented to me.

The crux of the issue with AP Human Geo which makes it a poor alternative for our preparation for APUSH is the College Board’s course outline.
The AP Human course outline doesn’t match the challenges of APUSH and that needs to change for it to help us in the latter class.

Even the teachers know that taking AP Human Geography doesn’t ready us because they have to teach to the course outline, which is in nature different than the one for US.
When it comes to AP Euro however, the course outline matches the one for US, so I recommend other students take it if they want to get a feel for the next year.