How Boston differs to South Africa.. part 6

Schools
-In the USA, there is Elementary School (grades 0-6), Middle School (grades 7-9) and High School (grades 10-12). Whereas in SA, there is Primary School (grades 0-7) and High School (grades 8-12)
- Here 'college' means a bachelors degree and 'university' means a postgraduate degree whereas in SA 'university' means bachelors and postgraduate degrees
- Public schools are free here. Mandarin is taught in Elemantary Schools
- The school year begins in September and ends in May/June. Whereas in SA, schools open in January and close in December. American schools don't tend to close over the Christmas break, their big break is in the Summer when they get off about 3 months to enjoy the sun
- Here the private universities like Harvard and MIT are the top universities in Boston, the public universities like UMass follow. This is in contrast to SA where the public universities like Wits and UCT  are generally better than the private ones (obviously some exceptions)
- At Harvard students are graded either A, A-, B+, B, B- where A is like our A in SA but their B- is like our E
- An MBA is much more expensive to do here, at Harvard and MIT tuition is about $60k for the degree (ie. R400k) whereas in SA they cost around R140k
- Online learning is becoming popular. BU offer an online MBA. MIT and Harvard are contemplating offering online courses in the future especially with the advancements in technology nowadays
- The majority of lecturers have Phd's
- Lecturers have TF's ie. teaching fellows who assist the lecturers with teaching, marking, etc.

Tax
- In different states they have tax free weekends.  In Massachusettes tax is about 13%. They have a weekend once a year in Aug, that is tax free on high value school/medical items bought

Tipping
- 15-18% in USA. Some restaurants charge 28% if more than 6 people. In SA, tipping is generally 10%, sometimes for large groups it is more