CA's teaching style had a huge influence on my learning experience, because it was more focused on learning skills than on memorizing specific information. While many of my friends at college have said that their high school academic experience was very memorization-heavy, this was not the case for me: at CA, most of our time was spent in discussions and hands-on learning experience. I have heard the teaching style at CA described as learning how to learn, and learning skills that can be applied to a variety of situations. This teaching style helped to prepare me much better for the intense academic environment at my university, because it helped me to be prepared for a wider variety of situations. I was more comfortable writing research papers, completing longer projects, and synthesizing material than many of my classmates freshman year. However, as a science student especially, I struggled with the heavy load of memorization required for entry-level college math, science, and economics courses. The class size was always small, to encourage discussion and participation, and since many teachers lived on campus, they were typically very available to students (and if not in person, always by email). The workload was pretty heavy for high school: I usually worked about 25-30 hours per week. There was always extra help available, for free from your teacher, and for a cost from some on-campus tutors. There was such a wide range of classes available that there were pretty much less or more advanced options in every discipline, and for some students that finished the available math curriculum (which already went up to multivariable calculus), there were opportunities to create independent studies with a faculty member in any department. I would say most students graduate with some public speaking ability, because every senior gives a fifteen minute speech in front of the whole school on their chosen topic, so everyone has to practice public speaking. Everyone also gains good composition/writing skills, because we were required to take four years of English. Leadership skills are also strong, because there are so many teams and clubs at CA that almost everyone who wants to be can become a leader in at least one organization. The school does not push people to follow a specific track; instead, it pushes people to explore a wide range of topics by having minimum requirements in every discipline, even including athletics and different types of arts.