Harvard College Student, Peer2Peer Co-Founder and CEO Mr. Douglas Yang @ Fireside 采訪者：蔣沛芸，吳業澧 Interviewer: Wendy Chong, Lawrence Ng You left Hong Kong to board at St. Paul’s to Phillips Academy Andover in the US after grade 8. Did you experience any difficulties in adapting to a completely new environment like Andover? (L) There’s a big difference in terms of learning style compared to St. Pauls. St Pauls is very lecture based and the learning style is more traditional, whereas boarding schools are more discussion based and project-centric. There was a lot of interaction and discussion in classes. For example in english class, the teacher wouldn’t say a single thing; he/she would just be sitting back and everyone would just discuss. It took a while to adjust to, but having experienced both styles, one can see merits in both of them. In terms of cultural differences, you meet a lot of different people from different backgrounds; At the boarding school, there was more ethnic diversity, so there were many ethnicities within the community. Learning to interact with them was a challenge because sometimes they might not understand your background–or where you come from– and how you see things, and vice versa. But I think by interacting and learning with them in the classroom, I got to know the way they think and speak. Overall, although there were some cultural differences, I think it worked out for the better for me since I got to learn a lot more about other people, a lot of their cultures and a lot of their backgrounds. I’ve always been more of an outgoing person and enjoyed talking to people, so in that sense, I wasn’t super affected by the cultural differences, and it helped me a lot. Do you have any preferences between the different learning styles in Hong Kong and the States? (L) I do have preferences, but it depends on the subject. For instance, math classes in boarding school: the teacher would come in, give you the worksheet, and you would start discussing with your classmates, because you would have had time to pre-study the materials beforehand. When you come into class, you work with your classmates on a set of problems; but sometimes, there would be students that hadn’t finished their homework, or because there’s only so much you can self-study, so everyone just becomes lost. And because it’s a very hands-on experience for the students – especially for subjects like science, math, and other STEM-related subjects, I honestly think that a lecture-based style is more helpful, just because you really need the teacher there to “feed” you the concepts, and you really need that interaction with the teacher. But I think that in terms of humanities subjects like English and Chinese, having that discussion-based style in classrooms is good, because... well it varies on the curriculum, because in St. Paul’s focuses more on grammar, obviously–but no one really cares about grammar, like absolutely no one cares about grammar– so the lecture-based style would work more in Hong Kong than in the States. But I think through discussing and interacting with a lot of your classmates in these humanities courses, on a writing level, you learn more vocabulary, you learn how to better structure your sentences, how to write better; and you learn how to voice your opinions better, you learn how to think critically, and how to build off of other peoples’ points. These sorts of communication skills and writing skills might be more difficult to get through a lecture-based class. If I had a preference, I think a discussion-based class would be more beneficial in humanities courses, but STEM-subjects would be better as a lecture-based class, in my opinion. Full transcript at: https://bit.ly/3nklh83 Editor: Zoë Mae Fedoruk 編輯：范達龍心怡
