Sophia Quality... Questionable?

[PrettyFlyforaChiGuy]

My own anecdotal experience taking Sophia's U.S. History I and II for fun is that, even after picking up 5's in AP History courses from way back in high school and a couple minors in History fields to boot, I still felt like the way they framed the course was really conducive the learning the same material in a new way. Actually, for me, their overarching emphasis on the different "lenses" of historiography led to several insights of a subject that I already loved dearly.

I definitely could have zoomed through the course and taken the milestones--and I just as definitely would have missed a few answers here or there--but I really took my time through the material to soak it all in since it felt like catching up with an old friend after a long break. It's possible to walk away from familiar subjects with new understandings, just like it's possible to run down the "easy" path and power through the material. Both speeds are just as valid as the other, depending on how you want/need to approach the material. Different students will approach their learning modules in different ways.

(This paragraph is just an irrelevant personal side-rant, but when I read Sophia course evaluations that claim the History curriculum is "liberal" because it goes beyond bullets and blood to consider socioeconomic issues, I mean, woosh; that's kind of one of the key takeaways of this entry-level, four-century overview: students studying history shouldn't close their minds off to reevaluating their understanding of their place in the world and how they operate among the systems in place within it.)