How the English Education System Works (at the moment!)

I've had many a discussion with Americans over the internet as to how our education system works, and as I've seen from the stats that many of you are, in fact, American, I thought I'd make a post about it.

Universities are Confusing!

Recently my sixth form attended a UCAS event to find out all about what universities and other opportunities are out there for us after we finish compulsory education. For me personally, it was basically an exercise of picking up prospectuses so you don't have to sign up for emails from the universities. If you didn't know already, I want to study Geography at university in two academic years time, preferably to do with climate change and with a year abroad so that I can keep my Spanish up. The trouble is, most universities do Geography, and all the degrees are very similar.

Why Modern Foreign Languages are useful

I've been trying to work out what to write about for a few days, and while I told Jenni I'd do something about fandom, I changed my mind at the last minute - sorry. (Fandom will come in due course).

I remember being confused when I was in French in year 7 as to why no-one in my class was finding the subject as interesting as I was, or at least as simple: there were at least four people other than me who had had three years' worth of French lessons beforehand!

And so that's what I'm writing about today - why so few people like learning languages. I was thinking about this because this week I've had to give GCSE options talks to the year nine students at my school studying 2 modern foreign languages - why it's good to carry on their second foreign language to GCSE level.