[习作点评] 求帮评Issue一篇 [复制链接]

ws7196
UID：3665563

寄托新兵

Rank: 2

声望: 50
寄托币: 18
注册时间: 2015-10-22
精华: 0
帖子: 4

电梯直达

楼主

发表于 2017-8-27 22:06:49 |只看该作者 |倒序浏览

题目：
Universities should require every student to take a variety of courses outside the student's field of study
文章：
Each discipline of study carries with it a unique style of thinking. Obsessed with only one specific field, a person inevitably becomes narrow-minded. In modern society, the heterogeneous nature of various complex but significant issues requires an increasing breath of study in order to tackle the problems. Moreover, academic background in multiple disciplines fosters creativity in research. As an institute to provide society with competent citizens and promising scholars, universities should make it a requirement for students to take multiple courses that are not within the scope of their major.

Taking courses in various subjects makes students more open-minded. If students only have classes related to their own discipline of study, they typically take the classes with a similar group of people, and therefore spend most of the university years sharing opinions and hanging around with one homogeneous group. This lack of contact with disparaging values and thinking styles easily lead to narrow-mindedness. My everyday observation tells me that students gradually grow in themselves some personal characteristic distinct to their majors. For instance, mathematics majors strive for perfection and the beauty of abstractness, whereas experimental physicists favor practicality and empirical observation over theoretical soundness; engineering majors tend to appear more conservatives whereas students who study humanities often become pioneers in campaign for more liberal values. It is impossible to truly understand the perspective of another person unless one has profound communication with him. The diversity of courses means that students will meet friends from various disciplinary backgrounds, providing with them a precious opportunity to develop a quality indispensable in our society, namely to see the world from more than one angle.

When considered in a utilitarian term, such a requirement will also benefit students once they graduate. Either in a business or in a scholarly setting, knowledge of multiple disciplines make university graduates more qualified to solve complex problems. The pressing issues of society has become increasingly intertwined. As a result, the effort of an export in a single field may prove inadequate. If a government official who majored in political science needs to implement a policy on genetically engineered food, the policy is unlikely to convincing unless he has some understanding about the biological side of story; likewise, a business major who works at a consulting group may fail to give appropriate suggestions for an Internet company, unless he is to some extent familiar with the frontiers in computer science. The more erudite a graduate is, the more competence he has when confronted with different challenges in his career.

Opponents to this school policy may express concerns that an emphasis on breadth undermines the depth of study. However, when the man-made boundaries between different disciplines are dissolved, depth and breadth can be achieved simultaneously.
Even in academia, where each realm of study seems more isolated than in any other settings, educational background in various realms has become more welcome with the surge of interdisciplinary studies. Take cognitive science as an example. The subject requires knowledge in social sciences such as anthropology, linguistics, psychology, as well as natural sciences such as mathematics, biology and neuroscience. Some understanding more profound than common sense is indispensable for the cooperation between experts in different fields to work smoothly. Without the contribution from social sciences, on one hand, a sophisticated overarching theory may prove hard to conceive; on the other hand, statistically-based well-controlled experiments may not be nicely designed and implemented without the help of natural science. By extending the knowledge of one field to another and overcoming methodological limits, breadth in education can facilitate the profundity of research by approaching issues from novel angles and expanding the realm of exploration.

The breadth of study can be achieved without sacrificing the depth in which we explore our specific majors. Educational background in various fields of study is beneficial for the personal achievement of university students whether they choose to working in an academic setting or not. The requirement for students to take diverse courses also tends to help them become more open-minded, and thus more adaptable to the diversity of modern world. Based on the reasoning above, I am strongly supportive of the policy for students to take courses outside their own field of study.