History EE topics cannot focus on events that are from the past decade; the rationale is that not enough time has passed for a range of historical perspectives to have come out. Also, for some events, we're still seeing the effects so it's difficult to look back with the necessary hindsight.

Now, this doesn't mean that you can't reference the modern day -- you can -- but that the FOCUS of your essay cannot be on anything that happened prior to 2011. President Ma's first election? Fine. President Ma's second election? No.

A key difference-maker in success on a History EE is the range of sources that you have read, taken notes on, and used. You are VERY likely to read a number of sources that you don't end up using in the essay itself. Expect to spend the early months of the EE reading and taking notes.

Many students have found that getting from a rough draft to a final version is often rather easy, since they've read so much and covered so much ground they don't typically need to re-do any research and are free to focus purely on revisions to the essay itself.

Globally, looking at the numbers of As, Bs, Cs, etc., History seems to be one of the hardest EE's to score highly in. This would be a misconception; a lot of students who score poorly are often pushed into History as a last-ditch effort (public schools in the U.S.) since History essays tend to be very straightforward. MDID students have generally done quite well on their History EE's.

This can be both a source of comfort and frustration.

The comforting side is that you do not need a perfect question to get started on a History EE. Since so much of the early going is based on research, reading, and taking notes, you can start with a general topic and use your research to refine that into a preliminary question. History students are able to get started a lot more quickly than most other subjects, as a result.

A downside is that your question will evolve as time goes on and as you uncover new information or encounter different perspectives. It will sometimes feel like you have to "throw away" work that you have done. I would again say this is a mistaken idea: you're not throwing anything away, as the work that you had done is what led you to this point. It's less of "starting over" and more of "moving to the next level."