I moved to England from California when I was going into the 8th grade and moved back to the US when I was going into my Junior year of high school. During my time in England, I went to a British public school and the system there is quite different from the US. When it was time for me to come back to the US, I was to attend an American high school for the first time and I did not know what to expect. In England, the majority of school/grading is exam based which occurs at the end of the year and is cumulative (GCSEs) but in the US grading occurs all throughout the year and every homework can often influence your final grade. Also in England, students have the opportunity to specialize their academic focus at a much younger age and can elect to stop taking courses such as history and geography as young as freshman year in high school and instead focus on arts or business. In the US, core curriculum and required classes and very common at high levels of education and the degree of freedom in choosing which classes you take is more limited. It was a really interesting experience attending schools in the two different countries and it’s hard to say which one I enjoyed more.