Argument 238

Jamin_CheungUID: 2752925

ARGUMENT238 - The following appeared in a memorandum from the president of Mira Vista College to the college's board of trustees.

"At nearby Green Mountain College, which has more business courses and more job counselors than does Mira Vista College, 90 percent of last year's graduating seniors had job offers from prospective employers. But at Mira Vista College last year, only 70 percent of the seniors who informed the placement office that they would be seeking employment had found full-time jobs within three months after graduation, and only half of these graduates were employed in their major field of study. To help Mira Vista's graduates find employment, we must offer more courses in business and computer technology and hire additional job counselors to help students with their resumés and interviewing skills."

In this memo, the president recommends the college's board to offer more courses in business and computer technology and employ additional job counselors to help students during hunting for jobs. To corrobrate his recommedation, he cites the example of the nearby Breen Mountain College and cites surveys on the graduats' job offers. Yet, close scrutiny will unveil that there lie some logical flaws.

Obviously, the comparison between competitive strength of graduates from GMC and MVC made by the author needs to be further discussed. He fails to give more details about the condition of the jobs and the two colleges. In his comparison, he unfairly assumes that prospective positons equal to positions in graduates' major field of study. It's likely that though students graduated from MVC found ideal jobs, the jobs are not related to their major in college. In addition, in my common sense, the demand for employees in different field is always changing. The one-year statistics are not representative for the conclusion. Thus, the conclusion that

Even if I concede that the graduates from GMC have more advantages to complete for occupations, I find that the writer unsubstantially builds the causal relationship. There is no evidence showing that such measures directly bring about the benefits of graduates. The writer perhaps fails to take other factors into accounts, such as the qualification. It's likely that graduates from GMC are more welcome because they are more qualified with the experience of part-time job while they studied on campus. Without ruling out such possibilities, I won't consider the president's idea as convincing.

Beyond the concession that more business courses and more job counselors have greatly contributed to the result of students job-hunting, there is no reason for the president to advise adding computer technology. To convince the college's board of trustees, he had better carry out more researches to find the talent market's demand of employees who have good command of computer.

In addition, the author unfairly confines the job counselors to help students with their resumes and interviewing skill. The content of their job should be decided by the needs of the students. Thus, we need more information to be collected.


In sum, the supports to the president's suggestion is not strong. To bolster his own idea, he should make more studies on the demand of the companies and graduates. I also need more details about MVC to evaluate the decision.