The school's programs (St. Mark's School of Texas) prepared me extraordinarily well for freshman year at college (Brown University). The biggest adjustment my first year at college was not having the same relationship with professors that I had with teachers at St. Mark's. I went from being in small 10 person classes to hundred-person lectures. The teachers at St. Mark's all seem to care, they all love their students and want them to succeed. The school's teaching philosophy in the math and sciences is what you would expect: lectures in which new material is taught, homework is reviewed, and old tests are explained. Once a week in every science course, there is an hour long class extension of class to do a lab. It was a great way to apply what I was learning in lectures/textbooks into real experiments. In biology, I remember creating a coffee-can calorimeter to analyze the caloric fuel of small pieces of food like popcorn and peanuts. In chemistry, I remember making a galvanic cell. In physics, I learned the most from wiring my own circuits and using capacitors in labs instead of in textbook problems. As for English and History courses, the classrooms are always in rooms with Harkness tables to encourage student-led discussions. This method is very effective and unique to St. Mark's. The class sizes never exceed 15. I had never been in a class in which I felt like I couldn't contribute because the class size was too big. The average weekly workload is not overwhelming. I worked on getting my homework done during free periods during the day, and usually I would not find myself buried in assignments at night. Very rarely would I have more than 4 hours of work in one night, and if I ever did, teachers are very understanding with giving extensions to make sure you have enough time to do your best work on an assignment. A student that is having trouble would have no problem meeting with any of his teachers outside of class to catch up or get extra help. The teachers are always trying to make sure the entire class is learning the material, and if someone is falling behind, usually the teacher will ask the boy to come get extra help. I think St. Mark's is more of a math/science school, however the English and History departments are far above average. I realized this year at college that while I had been very well prepared for the workload and requirements of college, the most important skill I acquired at St. Mark's is the ability to convey my thoughts clearly, speak with intention, and communicate with other students in my classes. I'm an engineering major, and I've noticed that not many students who are in my classes have this skill. Going to a high school in which I cultivated an interest for engineering and the sciences but also learned through the Harkness style of teaching, I acquired a very valuable and unique combination of skills that set me apart from my engineering classmates.