Dear Future Sophomores: NHD Advice

Dear Future Sophomores,

At NHS, if you take accelerated history, it tends to only mean one thing: NHD. National History Day. Those three letters loom ahead of you like a dark cloud on the horizon. But what if I told you that NHD is really not that bad? 

Any former NHD-er will tell you that the most important thing about NHD is staying on top of your work. My group set deadlines for ourselves that were a few days before the actual deadlines, which allowed us to have flexibility and feel less overwhelmed by the actual deadlines. We never had to stay up late the night an assignment was due because we had always finished it a few days prior.

Says one of my NHD partners, Maddie Rixner, “You should pick group members that you know you’ll be able to get work done with without getting off topic too much, but who you can also rely on to do the work with you. If you’re doing a group documentary, don’t edit the WeVideo at the same time! Make separate edits!”

Exhibit partners Alana Zaiger and Leah Finizio emphasize the importance of annotating throughout the project, which saves time and makes finishing it a lot easier, especially if you’re close to the deadline.

Mia Maffeo says to find “someone who has a decently similar schedule to you” and recommends trying to find a partner by the end of freshman year so that you don’t have to worry about it in the fall. She suggests making sure “that there is enough info/pictures/primary sources about your topic -- especially by reviewing what date your topic took place in. And know that if you pick a topic without a lot of pictures, that you wouldn’t want to do a documentary.”

Siena Uyenoyama, who made a play, keeps NHD advice short and sweet: “Just stay ahead.”

Website-creator Noah Siegal tells future sophomores, “Don’t feel so stressed out with it because it’s not as bad as people say it is. As long as you find a group that’s willing to share the effort it’s not bad at all. This may not be true for everyone, but the most I spent working in one day was about 1.5 hours.” 

While I have to admit that my group worked together for periods of quite a bit more than an hour and a half at times, I agree with Noah’s sentiment. If you make sure to stay on top of your work, NHD really won’t be bad at all. It might even be -- dare I say it? -- fun.