“2 Million Minutes,” is a series of documentaries that takes a closer look at how students from the United States, India and China spend their two million minutes in high school. UW-La Crosse recently held a presentation where this documentary was introduced and the turn out couldn’t have been better through the help of staff members and everyone who attended. The film showed the wide variety of education that was offered in schools, to how students ultimately determined their future goals. In India, career paths are chosen for students based on generations before them, rather than what the student enjoys doing. The United States focuses on multiple aspects that define a higher education, which include extracurricular activities, student associations and being involved in athletics.

“I believe it depends on how you define education, but I think helping all students reach their full potential can be accredited with the highest education among high schoolers,” said Matthew Thomas.

The fear of India or China dominating the market of education is slowly creeping up on the United States seeing that these countries are our biggest competitors thus far. Being such a dominant country in development, trends among high school students are not adding up with such characteristics. Rather than studying, students are spending more time playing video games, hanging out with friends and watching television which could directly relate to lower academic scores seen in high schools across the U.S.

In China, students spend twice as much time studying than Americans which leaves no time to do anything but study. One student said that if he’s not at school, he’s at home and that it’s either academics or nothing else. Different motivations or circumstances play a major role in how a student utilizes his or her study time. In China, the one child policy is one of the main reasons why parents invest so much time in their child’s education and very little inactivities. Americans typically spend 900 hours in school and 1,500 hours in front of a television per year. We are not globally aware of how other countries study and utilize their time; therefore, we are seeing a higher percentage of high school students who do not graduate and an increase in students who do not get accepted to their college of choice. “With students in the U.S being more versatile, it allows us to be prepared for the social aspects of college, rather than just the academics part,” said freshman, Bonnie Willis. Willis brought up a good point seeing that students in different countries spend close to all of their free time studying which brings the concern of whether they are communally ready to enter college. Without a doubt, students spend their time drastically different in high school than students in other parts of the world but looking back on when you were that age, how did you spend your two million minutes?