<p>I grew up in one of these benchmark countries that have nasty entrance exams to get to college… No EC’s, little to no career guidance, few electives in HS, no idea what one is getting into (the entrance exam system can be pretty random), few to no courses in other things that don’t show up in national tests…</p>
<p>We had a single semester in drawing - and it was a disaster. By comparison my daughter took something like 4 years of studio art, in addition to college level classes in engineering design, architectural drafting, and the like, and serious vocational tech classes in building a house (they actually did build a 1500 sq ft house from scratch). </p>
<p>Focusing on math alone is way overdone.</p>