During the start of the school year I started wishing life was like a Star Trek episode. Instead of cramming all my textbooks into my overworked backpack, the experience would be complete with miniature computer pads overloaded with information crammed into the itty-bitty hard drive while sitting comfortably in your back pocket. I can only imagine the vast difference in the happiness of high school and college student if the only school book they had to lug from point A to point B only weighed about two pounds and stored everything from the complete collection of Emily Dickinson, to the hefty hardcover calculus book.

Now, many colleges in the U.S. have begun to adopt the procedure of copying a portion of their school books into digital form. With the help of Google search engine, schools in Iowa, Indiana, Penn State, and Michigan – just to name a few – plans to scan up to 10 million volumes of literature into digital format.

Compared to China, the United States’ take on education are mere baby steps. In China, the path to college is a rigorous one that nearly shuts down the entire country for two days for the college entrance exam.

Unlike here in America, if you fail that sort of test in China it would be hard to say, “The system failed me!” considering all the outside effort that goes into getting students to that point.

The day the U.S. diverts airplanes away from an area where students may be taking the SAT’s, and not to mention when teachers start getting paid for their actual worth, that will be the day the bill for education won’t be slided for a costly war. But that’s a whole another rant that I’ll save for another day.
—Eming Piansay