1月28日独立 110115NA Do you agree or disagree with the following statement? The main role of the university professor is to educate students rather than to do research.
In this day and age, the main role of university professor has been thrown into sharp relief. People remain divided over whether they are supposed to be educators or researchers. I tend to agree with that they should pay more attention to education rather than research.
First, most fundamental knowledge and skills, which are useful to students' job hunting process, are from college courses. Without careful instructing, students may not find a proper job and the college will lose its reputation gradually. For example, my major is nursing. We have to learn a large number of professional theories and skills which are all come from professors. If they do not pay enough attention to educating, we will lose competition when find jobs because of poor grasp of knowledge and practice skills. Then hospitals will not want to hire graduates from our college and finally our college may have difficulty in enrolling new students. This is a vital problem to a university. So professors are supposed to educate students carefully to guarantee college's reputation and attract increasingly numbers of excellent students.
Also, age from 18 to 25 is the time when most people generate their real interests and decide to choose which field as their lifelong career, so professors should pay more attention on students' education to guide them finding their own way. Otherwise, there may be more perplexed adolescents wander on the street having no jobs. For example, Li Kaifu, previous CEO in Google China, once was a law student in Columbia University, USA, but he found he had a huge interest in computer science when he attended an elective. Then he transferred to school of computer science. Without the professor who stimulated Li's interest to computer and professors who helped him to reach his goal we will lose an outstanding leader in IT industry.
Granted, someone may indicate that educating to students will distract professors from research which is also important to professors and universities. Instead, I assert that discussing with students sometimes can inspire professors’ idea and help them reach a high stage in their research. For example, my instructor Professor Geng, whose research area is similar to my graduation thesis, likes to discuss with me about issues in our research field when she guides my thesis. We often can inspire each other, which is a wonderful experience.
Thus, given education from professor benefits students’ professional knowledge and skills and their career choice and students and professors can inspire each other during the process of instructing, the main role of university professor is educating.