Can education be too rushed?
Participating in this program has taught me much about British history, culture, lifestyle, and politics, but learning about the British schooling system stood out to me especially. One major way in which it compares to the United States’ system is that during college (British terminology for “high school”), students must narrow their studies to align with their aspired profession. They also must know exactly what they want to study during their time at their university before they begin their schooling. In the United States, students have the choice of changing their passions and career paths many times in both high school and at universities, which is proven by the existence of the Exploratory major at Ohio State. The United States also has General Education courses unlike schools in the UK. The yearly structure of the British school system is similar to that of the Unites States in that they go to schools (two in Britain and three in the US) in preparation for universities.
Once students in Britain reach a certain point in their schooling in college (“high school”), they enter sixth-form college, which is the final two years before a university. Students must choose three subjects they want to be the core focus of their final years, then take exams over their chosen subjects for universities to consider for acceptance. After college, they must decide on a major, which they cannot change. For example, our Professor, who grew up in Northern England, thought he wanted to be a lawyer. He started out at his university with those intentions but, three weeks in realized that it was not the discipline for him. He had to drop out and take a gap-year before going back to study a new career path the following year. Our tour guide at Oxford, a very prestigious university outside of London, was torn between majoring in Chemistry or Physics. She had to be certain in her choice to avoid having to start over her studies. Personally, after taking chemistry classes and realizing my passion for it, I changed my major from Biology to Biochemistry and am much happier.
Through this program, we visited Eton College, an elite preparatory school for boys aged 13 -18, which provided me great insight into the British schooling system. Many notable people went there including Henry Moseley, Robert Boyle, Tom Hiddleston, and Bear Grylls. According to Eton College’s website, their academic structure is set up into five blocks with one block per year. Block F, the first block, is the foundational block consisting of a range of subjects and two foreign languages. In the next block, Block E, students concentrate on ten subjects, followed by nine subjects in Block D. Next, in Block C, boys study at least four subjects, allowing them to enter Block B. In Block B about half of the boys reduce to three subjects, which they take their final exams over during the following summer to apply to universities. This education proves successful for some, as they get into prestigous colleges like Oxford and Cambridge but not for all.
This past week, I had the opportunity to meet up with a friend that was raised in London but decided to go to Ohio State. I asked her why she wanted to go to a university in the United States after being educated in London at a high-ranking school, and the main reason was that she did not like the limited flexibility in one’s studies. She chose her three subjects in college, which were English, Music, and Math. She then went on to major in English at Ohio State with no idea of post-graduation plans. Now, entering her third year, her General Education courses have allowed her to become interested in law. She now plans on going to law school, which she never could have seen herself doing prior to going to Ohio State.
The rationale behind the British academic system could be that it prepares students better for their desired profession because their education is heavily specialized before going to a university, whereas I took a wide range of upper level classes from english to calculus. I think that this system limits people from exploring available options to find what their true interests are and causes people to specialize before they are more indpendent in their decision making. With this system, I would not have been able to switch my major and would have had to decide whether to start my education again or settle with a major that is suboptimal for me. I am an EMT and had to take a class and examinations in addition to completing many clinical hours to obtain my certification. The clinical hours were more hands-on and taught me much more than what I learned in the classroom. I believe that at the high school/college and university level, students will learn much more once they are immersed in their desired profession, whether that be through clinicals, internships, etc., as opposed to the material they learn in the classroom. I think that Great Britain should adopt the United States’ education system because it allows students to search for an education path they are most passionate about, enabling them to obtain a profession they will love for many years.
