I would highly recommend attending summer school if the opportunity is presented

My school - Chiswick Community School in London - allowed me to have the last three weeks or so off and I flew over on my own to begin courses on 8 July.

The transition was not as hard for me as it was for other summer school students, my aunt lives in DC and so I had someone to organise moving in and someone to provide an instant source of money!

Others relied on travellers' cheques and frequent phone calls.

Foreign influence

The program consisted of 127 students, with a sizeable foreign influence.

Although I was the only British person in the summer school, there were students from Germany, Spain and many from Latin America.

After a few days I identified a girl who went to boarding school in Ascot, but who lived in Washington.

This was typical of a lot of the students on my program - there were many sons and daughters of politicians, investment bankers, executives and the aristocracy.

I took two classes - European history and international relations. The lessons were each daily, 90 minutes long for five weeks.

Playing catch-up

Many Georgetown undergraduate students were also in our classes, catching up or getting a head start for extra university credit.

The courses were standard US college classes, but squashed in from 13 to five weeks.

Although somewhat intense, I found them very enjoyable.

The teaching and learning techniques were very different to what I was used to in England - taking four AS-levels.

Teaching was mostly through lectures, in classes of about 20 to 30.

Attendance optional

As with university in Britain it was completely the student's prerogative whether to take notes or even come to the lesson at all!

One notable difference was the use of information technology in the US.

My European history professor utilised extensively a teaching aid called "blackboard" - this was a website where he could communicate with us.

Our nightly readings and assignments were posted there. We could talk to the professor or other students, and there was even a "digital drop-box" to hand in assignments.

This I found more convenient and very useful as opposed to the extensive paper-work which often eats into class time.

Reading workload

There was also a great deal more reading to be done than I had expected or was used to - we had between 50 and 100 pages to read per night.

But, as we quickly learned from the older college students there, a key skill for every university student is to do enough to get by, skimming non-essential text.

For the duration of the five weeks we stayed in regular college dorms on campus.

These were important in building friendships and we all felt like we had a pretty accurate simulation of student life - television, pizza, piles of laundry etc.

Making friends

Most of the closest friends I made were on my floor and my roommate - from New Orleans - became a good mate.

Many of us still make the effort to keep in touch, which is easy since pretty much everyone had his or her e-mail address published in our mini-yearbook.

Although I missed home in the first week, our schedule was packed with organised activities such as visits to a baseball game and theme parks - this made time fly by.

Saying goodbye on the last day was hard - but I am confident I will stay in touch with many of the friends I made.

And being a residential program, people got to know one another faster and more intimately.

Broader studies

Studying a summer in the US was incredible fun - and even more worthwhile for me since I missed three weeks of school here as well!

Even though I doubt I will attend university in the States, the summer school was a great opportunity to study subjects that I miss out on when the UK system narrows to A-levels.

While learning a lot, I was in the middle of a great city and made friends easily from the large, diverse student population on my program.

I would highly recommend attending summer school if the opportunity is presented.

Although it is voluntary as opposed to involuntary learning, it is great fun and will be beneficial when it comes to university applications - here and in the US.