There's no room for fools in school

Education values are different for every person. In the US, it's a common practice for students and their families to go to school on credit. We ask the banks and government for money to pay for university. Non-Americans are usually shocked to hear that it's easy to ring up a half-million dollar bill for a four-year private college. True story.

Some of my foreign friends thought it was strange for me to be so serious about my studies. There's a certain pressure over me when I'm spending invisible money that doesn't even belong to me. I'm not going to mess around.

We, in the US, have a strict no-no policy on plagiarism--on copying the thoughts or ideas of other people--cheating, working together, etc. Publishers are also really big about their copyright rules. My ears have already bled after hearing about the rules for the 12,409,548th time. After being abroad, I realize that this is probably a super strange concept for the international students.

- In Argentina, my theatre/dance professor told me straightforward to go online to copy and paste articles into my research paper.

- I didn't buy textbooks in Argentina, everything was photocopied.

- Russian students can sometimes give monetary bribes to their professors. Unfortunately, students sometimes have no other choice.

- In Spain, you don't even have to go to classes. Just show up to take exams.

Pardon me as it is now high time for me to study until my eyes bleed.