Location: Starbucks
Topic discussed: School Systems and what it is like to live in another country.
Cultural and/or linguistic topics you and your partner learned:
Arzu and I discussed the school system from her home country. I learned that in Turkey, the school system is very different; specifically from the college standpoint. In Turkey they do not apply to colleges, colleges are chosen for the students. The students take an exam and their scores are sent to the government who chooses which school the student will go to. I found this very interesting because the element of choice is completely removed from the students. In America, the students still must take an exam- the SAT or ACT- that plays a role in the application process to a college, but the exams are not the pivotal point of acceptance. The government also has no direct say in the acceptance process unlike the Turkish process. I also learned that although the government decides where a student may go, the students must still send in applications to the individual schools that they want to go to.
The element of choice is such an integral part of the American identity that, as an American student, I believed all colleges were chosen by the student. This, of course, is ethnocentric notion that I was happy to dispel after my conversation with Arzu.
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