My interest in history was sparked when I was visiting the graves of my ancestors on All Saints’ Day in primary school.Visiting my ancestors’ graves on All Saints’ Day eight years ago first sparked my interest in history. I asked I still remember asking my grandfather why is my great-great-grandmother’s name on her grave writtenwas carved on her grave in an incomprehensible alphabet. My grandfather briefly explained how the Second World War forced our family to move west, far from the Soviet Union.westward from the USSR. Understanding how little I knew about my family history fascinated me, which prompted me to consider how past events continue to It deeply fascinated me how events from the past still affect our lives by shaping the present.

The history curriculum in primary and middle school was too narrow for me, it focused mostly on Polish history. I enjoyed top marks in history in both primary and middle school but the curriculum focused mostly on Polish history, which I found constraining. To pursue my interest in history I had to read books that were outside of my school curriculum, such as Norman Davies’ “God’s Playground”. I particularly enjoyed it because it provided To pursue my interest in history, I read Norman Davies’ “God’s Playground”, which provided me with a comprehensive and objective non-standard view of a foreigner on Polish history, something that wasn’t easily accessible in the textbooks that I used at school. on Polish history that was not easily accessible in my school textbooks, which glamorized and politicized history. Reading extra other books widened the scope of my historical interests and introduced me to a lot of information wealth of knowledge that I wouldn’t have otherwise learned in be able to learn at history lessons.

In high school, I enrolled in the IB Diploma Programme. During the history lessons, we study events in great detail and use varying sources that often contradict each other. For example, some were written from a conservative standpoint while the authors of others employed a Marxist mindset. often use many sources with different, contradictory approaches to events, for example the conservative view and the Marxist one. It is crucial to recognize I think that it is important to know various interpretations of historical events even if we don’t agree with them, because in so doing we begin to understand the phenomenon in question better. In fact, it really helps to understand the event better – contrasting historiographical approaches often help us understand different causes of events. emphasise different causes for it.

The periods that interest me the most are the I am most fascinated by the Second World War and the Cold War . They fascinate me because they are quite recent, significant events that had a huge impact on the world and I can still quite easily see their impact on the country and city that I live. , not only because of their recency but also because they had a substantial impact that I notice every day in my country and even my city. To increase my knowledge about them, I read books such as Davies’ “Europe at War 1939-1945: No Simple Victory” or and “The Second World War” by Antony Beevor. Nevertheless, I would still like to learn more about 20th century history study 20th-century history in greater depth at university level.

In my free time, I made a an extensive family tree that reaches as far as the beginning of the XIX19th century with the help of my grandfather. It was fascinating, but not easy and involved extensive research in sources such as Doing so proved fascinating even if it wasn’t simple; in fact, it required extensive source-based research in parish records and state archives. Creating an extensive family tree This experience taught me patience and gave me valuable experience in work with and developed my fluency in critically reading historical sources. – doing quality research isn’t a walk in the park and doesn’t give Now I understand that quality research doesn’t provide instant gratification. If one wants it to be of any value it requires a lot of time spent on gathering information from various sources. and that for my conclusions to be valuable I need to spend a considerable amount of time gathering information from primary sources. Nonetheless, I find the delayed gratification from better understanding one’s history priceless.

Since childhood I have visited a lot of museums and historical places. They were all very interesting, but a museum that particularly appealed to me was the Cornwall’s Regimental Museum in Bodmin, England. It isn’t the most popular one nor it has the richest collection but it is still fascinating because it manages to interestingly shows modern British history through the eyes of a single regiment. The visit in the museum taught me that every place, even the smallest one has its own history and how important preserving that history is for the local community.

Apart from my interest in history, I’m also interested in geography and politics, I am also interested in geography, political science and foreign languages. I was a finalist in my voivodeship’s social studies contestand English contests and a member of the committee responsible for opinion polling before the 2020 parliamentary elections at my school. I have also started learning Russian in my free time. In order to help the local community andTo strengthen skills such as time management, work organisation and cooperation in a group, I started volunteering in the local library 3 years ago. I took part in organising the annual “IB Play” with my peers. Even though I was only an actor, I actively collaborated with the costume designers and screenwriters, and shared my ideas by providing them with advice on the whole play. At the first rehearsals I didn’t perform well, primarily as a result of the stress that comes with public appearances. However, I managed to overcome stage-fright with mutual help from my classmates and learned that by combining our strengths, we are able to do things that might seem very hard or even impossible.

I feel that history is the perfect subject for me to study at university because I want to further improve research skills, source analysis I love history, and I want to further improve my research skills in analyzing sources, essay writing, and critical thinking. I’m really passionate about history and further studiesFurther studies will certainlyundoubtedly help me in understandingunderstand how history has shaped the world thatin which we live in.