My Road of Life

A High Schooler’s Experience with the Chinese and American Education Systems

On one of the most important days of my life, the heavy atmosphere in my classroom was like a still, lifeless gulf. I was sitting in my chair and waiting for the teacher to call out my name. A drop of sweat slipped through my hair like the star flying across the sky. My classmates got their grades one by one. Some of them smiled, as if getting a big prize, but others seemed to want to find a place to cry. “JiaHao Wu” the teacher called me to the front. I walked slowly toward the front of the class. My legs could not stop shaking. The teacher stared at me like a hawk looking at a rabbit. He seemed to speak something with his mouth to me when he handed back the exam paper. I was so scared that I was not able to look at my grade immediately. I went back to my seat and struggled with whether or not to look at the result of the exam. While I hesitated, my friend grabbed my paper and smiled mysteriously. Suddenly, he laughed and gave my paper back. I looked down and my inner world went from freezing winter to the spring with blossoms of flowers. I had passed.

In China, not everyone gets to go to high school. Due to an overpopulation of students and limited high school spots, all students must take a challenging high school entrance exam. There is only one chance for students to take the entrance exam. This allows Chinese students to pay less attention to their daily quizzes and assignments. The only thing they need to do in order to get into a high-ranking high school or university is to be in the top percent of scorers on the entrance exam. However, not everyone is lucky enough to get a high grade. For the Chinese students that fail the entrance exam, they have two ways to go. One of which is that they can go to a low-ranking high school. Another option is to study in a foreign country if their family is financially able to support their children in doing so. Most Chinese parents and students think that studying abroad is a better choice because students at least are able to learn English. Due to the pressure, some Chinese students escape from the entrance exam directly by studying abroad.

I had a challenging experience when I studied for the high school entrance exam. Motivated to do well, I studied very hard. Every day, I woke up at 6:50am and started school at 7:25am. I had 8 lessons during a normal school day and finished all lessons and additional self-study at almost 10pm every night. Chinese students spend at least 12 hours a day studying for the entrance exam. Isn’t that crazy? Unfortunately, the cycle for the Chinese students continues to repeat again and again. There is no freedom during this time in a middle schooler’s life, because there is pressure not only from the school, but also from the parents. In the eyes of parents in China, their children are the most vital component in their life. Getting their children into a competitive high school is extremely significant for getting them into an excellent university. This will affect their children’s life immensely. The entrance exam is the one obstacle in front of students.

Nonetheless, I am a lucky person, since I got a high enough score to apply to the best high school in my city. But I gave up the opportunity to follow a different dream. Instead, I chose to study in New York City — the US — due to two reasons. My future career goal is one of the reasons I made this decision. I hope to work in finance, and the US is the capital leader of the world. Another reason is that I am not satisfied with the Chinese education system. The Chinese education system made me nervous all the time. The pressure is so unbearable that the system leads to some Chinese students committing suicide. It terrified me when I saw a same-age student trying to jump off the fifth floor of the academic building in primary school. I was completely got shocked. A thought came to my mind at that time: How failing the Chinese education system is! What the Chinese government wants is to manufacture perfect products. Students should know everything. The difficulty of courses in the high school is extremely high because of the number of subjects and the professional knowledge students are expected to master. I had heard from some of my friends who studied abroad that the school life in the foreign countries is not as difficult as in China. That in other education systems, students even have the right to choose what classes they would like to study. It sounded too good to be true! Thus, although staying in the best school in my city was quite attractive to me, I decided to study aboard.

After coming to study in the US a year ago, I noticed that I was entering a strange world, which is absolutely different from what I had imaged before. I felt like an angel suddenly falling down from heaven to the hell. When I came to my school in the US for the first time, I felt uncomfortable adapting to a new English-speaking environment. Letters jumped out at me like a kangaroo, heavily hitting my mind.

Adjusting to a new academic system was not as easy as I had imagined it would be. Since I was not familiar with my school system, in my first day of class, I made an embarrassing though kind of funny mistake. The mistake happened after I finished my first class in the morning. When the first class was over, I stayed in the classroom and waited for my next teacher to arrive. In China, students stay in the same classroom and teachers rotate, so I didn’t realize that my next lesson was not in the same classroom. The next class started: physics for junior. Because I sat in the back of the class, the physics teacher didn’t notice me until the class had started for half an hour. In fact, I didn’t understand what the teacher was talking about, but I continued quietly sitting in my chair, since I afraid of interrupting the class. Suddenly, I got a shock. The teacher spotted me and asked me why I didn’t go to my next class. All the people’s attention focused on me. Can you imagine how awkward it was? I stood up and walked out of the classroom with all the juniors’ eyes on me. When I went to my actual class, the teacher didn’t let me in because I was late. He criticized me at the end of class in front of my new peers. How unlucky I was!

I am busier in the US than in China. The water current of homework washes over me nonstop. Everyday I have to spend a large amount of time on homework. However, I enjoy and have fun in the process of learning my favorite subject — math. Also, the extracurricular activities are abundant in American schools, which is totally different from Chinese schools. Chinese schools, especially in high school, mainly focus on studying. Rare opportunities are available for students to join clubs and volunteer. In this way, Chinese high schools restrict students from interacting with society. US schools have many clubs and sport teams, which Chinese schools don’t provide, such as business club, stock market club, and golf team. In China, the only class trips I took were to amusement parks. In my new American school, I have gone on at least one trip every year to visit a museum or a famous local landmark.

Upon reflection, studying in China and the US both have their own benefits and weaknesses. For instance, Chinese high school doesn’t provide a list of subjects for students to chose from. All students are required to study all subjects at a deep level when they are in high school. They also need to memorize a lot of knowledge. This knowledge may be useless after a student graduates and has a job in society. Following the memorization, students in China tend to lack the ability to create new ideas, but their ability to memorize improves a lot. In contrast, in the US, students are able to choose their subjects and make their educational experience more individualized. Because I am able to study subjects I like, I tend to work harder than when I was in China and learn more during the studying process. Furthermore, in the US school system, I get a feeling that memorizing knowledge is not the most significant goal of the education system. The vital target is to improve a student’s ability to self-study and develop personal skills, such as giving a speech and communicating with others. Overall, the US education system is more flexible than the Chinese’s. Though it was challenging to transition to studying in the US educational system, I am glad that I chose to do so. While I face a different set of pressures, I am learning to be more independent and skillful.

Two years to the date, I find myself in the same place, waiting to get back another entrance exam score. But this time is different. The new requirement for getting into a top university in the US is much sophisticated than in China. I’m going to face a lot of different kinds of exams in the future, such as TOEFL exam, SAT I, SAT II, and AP exam. However, the top universities are not only looking at exam scores, but also the particular skills and experiences that can distinguish me from other students. I am still on the way, but I believe that if I keep moving forward all the time, I will arrive one day at my target university.