The Quad: International secondary education discrepancies

As a first-year international student, there have been several instances that have prompted me to think about the many differences between the high school education systems in the U.S. and those in India.

In India, I attended a public school affiliated with the Central Board of Education. CBSE, which is a government-controlled educational board, governs and oversees the curriculum and method of teaching. It also conducts the 12th grade final examinations, the results of which determine one’s admissions into college. Despite its importance, this system emphasizes less application of knowledge and more rote learning. We are given answers to memorize and the exact same ones are asked on tests.

Overloaded with assignments and midterms, I quickly learned that this wasn’t the way things worked at UCLA.

One of the assignments for my GE cluster, Interracial Dynamics in America, was to write a literary analysis paper on a book. A lit paper may seem like an easy task given you’ve actually read the book, but this wasn’t the case at all for me, despite reading the 215-page book not once, but twice.

In India, I never once wrote a four-page, 1200-word, detailed analytical paper on a book, so for this paper, I didn’t know where to start. I started typing, read the words on the screen and deleted all of them. This went on and on. With the deadline fast approaching, I frantically called every friend of mine for help. They were all breezing by. Having written such papers before, they knew what the professor was expecting and they knew how to deliver it. I was as clueless as ever.

On the other hand, I don’t have any difficulty with the math classes my peers seem to dread. Mathematics 31A goes over limits and derivations in the first half of the quarter. Since I already studied this back in high school, I didn’t have any problems, whereas others were struggling.

In India, we weren’t provided with a list of derivations or trigonometric formulas and calculators like we are here. Students practiced them day and night so that now we have them at our fingertips. I know all the methods, shortcuts and tricks to solve sums quickly, and here, being forced to take the long route was exhausting as well as annoying to me. The 10 a.m. class couldn’t have been any more of a snooze-fest.



Used to the CBSE system, it was understandable that I found it difficult to adjust to college and a new educational system that focused more on analyzing, critical thinking and application of what we had learned in lectures.



With tons of resources on campus, here’s hoping I cope soon enough, and get that 4.0 my parents so want me to get – wishful thinking at its best.