Student compares Permian to home

Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Silvana Cogliano, Staff Writer

***Opinion pieces reflect the opinion of the writer only, and not the opinion of the newspaper staff, student body, administration or school faculty.***

Do you want to know my opinion about Permian High School?

Well what to say, first of all you must know that I’m an exchange student from Italy, and this school is completely different for me, it is a new thing!

The Italian school system is totally unlike the American one. There are many big differences. In Italy, for example, we have five years of High School while here you have only four. One of the biggest dissimilarities is how the school is conceived in Italy. There we go to school for only five periods from 8:40 am to 1:40 pm, so we don’t have a cafeteria, but we go to school from Monday to Saturday, while here you have nine periods but one day less. I honestly don’t know what I like best, hours less each day or one day less. It is a hard choice!

The American school for me is much cooler. It has many extra classes to follow and activities to do. In Italy we don’t have sports at school, we only have physical education. We don’t have just a school with all the subjects, instead we have different schools. Obviously there are the basic subjects like Italian, Math, English, etc…, but then we can choose the school that we like best. If you like languages better, you go to a Linguist High School (that’s where I go), if you like more math classes, you go to a Scientific High School, and so on. I can say that I like the American system more because it offers many further opportunities. It allows you to really understand what you like to do. Before I came here to do this year abroad, I had always dreamed of going to an American high school. For us foreigners the thought of the American high school is like what we see in the movies. So at least from my point of view it has consistently been a dream to frequent it. Now that I’m here I can say that it isn’t so different from how I had imagined it. Certainly it’s not exactly the same, but not very dissimilar.

Everything is so new for me! I believe that Permian High School is fantastic and very big. Just think, my school in Italy has only 250 students (this school has even more people than my village). One thing that surprised me a lot is that here you change classes and you have the same subjects everyday while in Italy the teachers are the ones who change classes and the schedule is different day to day. I prefer to not change classes because with the classmates there is a closer relationship.

A thing I like in American school is that the teachers are closer to the students and it is easier to communicate with them. I also love the fact that in some classes you are allowed to use the phone. Here in America I’ve been to two schools and I can say that I like Permian High School much more than the other one.

Thanks to it I’m living part of my dream. It is an amazing experience!