Why study history? That’s a question a lot of students and adults ask. Many of us wonder why we need to learn things we could just look up online. Or what difference it makes that an event like a war or pandemic happened on a certain date.
Here are 3 huge reasons to study history.
1. Empathy
Empathy may seem like an abstract reason to study history, but look at the world around you! With new movements, divisive elections, and big decisions being made every day, empathy is in short supply. People make political decisions all the time based on experience and news, but what about feeling? How do you know what to feel about current events?
History can help you with that every day. By teaching you about patterns in history, you can interpret information that the news gives you. Thus, you can look at a movement, a conspiracy, a lie, or the truth, and see them more clearly for what they are.
By learning other views through history, you also gain empathy for people different than you. That could make you a more informed citizen and also more confident in your beliefs.
2. Leadership
History teaches us a ton about how leaders have lived and died, the decisions they’ve made, and thus how the past has been shaped by their ideas. You may not think leadership matters to you, but it does if you want to get ahead! No matter the job you have, being a better leader could help you immensely.
Knowledge of history can teach you what motivates people, how to talk to them, and also what strategies have helped people make changes for the better. This information can get you a promotion in your job, improve your relationship with fellow students, or teach you how to improve yourself.
3. Expertise
For a more tangible reason to study history, completing these classes can give you expertise that shows experience and dedication if part of a degree. Or it may reveal your capacity to keep learning, to pursue more certification and education.
Either way, completing classes adds to the person that you present to potential employers. It makes you more interesting. If you want better jobs, you need to bring more to the table and a history class could be one more thing.
The Takeaway
Why study history? This question has been on every student’s mind at least once. Parents probably run into this question too. If a kid has to learn something like the history of the swine flu, they definitely want to know why.
The three reasons above offer a case for how history can help us every day. We can make better decisions, get better jobs, and write better resumes just with a little more knowledge. No matter what we hope to use them for, we can only benefit from classes that we devote time and attention to. Knowing these reasons to pursue history could give you that devotion.
