Education is a fundamental aspect for a country. Young people spend many hours in schools and institutes and having a good system is key for a country to be stable in the future, allowing young people to leave correctly educated. The percentage of 18-24 year olds in our country leaving school stood at 13.2% during the first three quarters of 2024. This percentage is quite high, with very diverse causes such as complicated family circumstances, economic difficulties and the perceived lack of usefulness of education.
One solution to curb this dropout is to listen to student feedback and look outward. Taking things that work in other countries and adapting them to Spain could also help students feel more comfortable and also increase success. To reference this situation, a young Spanish girl named Martina Torralbo who studies in the United States has uploaded a video to TikTok explaining how education works in both countries and the differences between both educational systems, what has been her student experience. She also highlights the differences in academic cultures, including how international students are treated.
The experience of this Spaniard studying in the United States
“There are many pros and cons, but I prefer school in the United States, called high school,” explains this Spaniard at the beginning of the video. She is referring to the age at which in Spain the Compulsory Secondary Education (ESO) is completed. The reason is the following: “In Spain you study to death, without being able to go out. You study the exams, you memorize them, you throw everything into the exam and you forget. In short, it’s memorizing.
He makes a comparison with the North American country: “There everything is more practical. You learn too, but in a more interesting way, more practical and in the end it stays more in your head because it interests you more.” “It’s like you don’t have time to do what you really want to do because you have to study and you have to stop living things,” he stresses. He explains that it’s the opposite there: “Here you have time for everything. I have fun first and then I do school stuff. It’s your happiness first, it’s more practical.”
He insists on defending the education there while explaining how it works: “You have to memorize just the same, it’s not like you say it’s for dummies because you don’t have to do anything. You have a lot of classes and you can choose the level you want. If it’s too easy you get into another class.” However, it’s not a blunt selection: “It also has a lot of cons, for example, there are a lot of alarms.” He focuses his explanation on the ‘lockdown’, a drill that is performed in case there is a shooting.
Fear of shootings: the experience of a Spanish student in this situation.
“I have lived through several, and although you get used to it, it is shocking to know that it happens in your school,” explains this young woman. However, she comments that it ends up becoming naturalized: “It is very shocking, I have seen cases in which a lot of people have died, but in the end you are not afraid because everything is like that. If you are afraid, you don’t do anything. He explains that it is one of his greatest fears: “It is one of the things I don’t like and with which I don’t feel safe”.
He also criticizes the distance: “It takes me 15 minutes to get there, while in Spain I walked five minutes and it was much more comfortable”. Another point against him is the difficulty to establish real relationships: “Here everyone is on their cell phones. Every day I see new faces, as if no one really knows each other”. He explains that in Spain “everyone knows each other”. Despite this, at the end of the video he returns to the United States”.