Last year, I finished the International General Certificate of Secondary Education (IGCSE) programme at YCIS Puxi Secondary. This qualification is the most popular international certificate worldwide for students aged 14-16 and is organised by Cambridge Assessment International Education.

Fun, innovative and helpful would be the three words to describe my IGCSE experience. I really enjoyed the diversity of IGCSE’s teaching method. What remains most in my memory is my Chemistry class, which was based on experiments that we carried out by ourselves; while there were a lot of failures in the experiences, I really liked the interaction with my friends, the use of diverse chemicals, and the experience of trying to succeed in the experiments eventually fostered my deeper understanding of the theory and eagerness to learn more about the subject. This also helped me alter my approach towards study: how a student will be evaluated is through the numbers on the report, but what is more important is the knowledge and soft skilled obtained.

IGCSE also provided me with chances to experience different kinds of courses ranging from STEM to the Arts, which allowed me to better understand what I like, and what I am good at. Through my subjects such as Coordinated Science, Mathematics, Visual Art, Geography, Business etc., now I understand that I am creative and that I am good with logical thinking, which helped me choose by International Baccalaureate (IB) subjects such as Math, Chemistry, Physics etc. IB requires a different depth and amount of work compared to IGCSE, yet during classes, there is always that moment that I think: “Oh, I learned this in IGCSE, now I understand why it is what it is.”

By Jiwoo, Year 12, YCIS Puxi Secondary.