Issue50 [Shining Sep 作文组] 8.24

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TOPIC: ISSUE50 - "In order to improve the quality of instruction at the college and university level, all faculty should be required to spend time working outside the academic world in professions relevant to the courses they teach."
WORDS: 582          TIME: 1:08:53          DATE: 2006-8-25

In this era of rapid social and technological change leading to increasing life complexity and psychological displacement, education has been paid more and more attention by people. The speaker suggests that all faculties in the college and university should spend time working outside the academic world in professions relevant to the courses they teach. I fundamentally agree with the speaker. This advice can improve the quality of instruction at the college and university, however, whether it would have positive effect on every subject and student, and whether it is suitable for every course are both uncertain.

In the professors' view, working outside the academic world in professions relevant to the courses they teach is an effective method to open professors' view, and find out the trend of developing of technologies in different fields. For example, in the IT field, because the new concepts and new technologies are invented too quickly, the professors must know what kind of knowledge is the most useful and what kind of technologies is the most concerned by people in today's world. Going out of the campus and working in the society for a time regularly could make professors to acquire these information timely and it could let professor amend their teaching plan reasonable. Moreover, to work outside the academic world can help professors to change research results into productive forces, and productions. To realize the value of a new research result, it always need a large amount of money, but unfortunately, the professors in the campus can not afford the money, so it would impede the new research results to benefit the society. If the professors work outside the academic world, they can explain their theories, thoughts and results to some investors who have enough money to support professors' projects. Therefore, spending time working outside is a proper idea for professors.

In the students' view, this suggestion has many advantages to students. Working in some fields or projects relevant to the courses they study could inspirit the interests of studying. The greatest physics scientist, Albert Einstein said :"Interest is the best teacher." When the student work out of the campus, they can get a lot of vivid and real samples and knowledge which were just printed on the books before. For instance, students with biology major could observe the animals' behavior on the spot. Students with architecture major could go to the real construction site to see the real situation. These all would encourage students to study better. In addition, this suggestion also can give students some important experience, especially in the management courses. When these students work in some companies, it is a good time for them to learn the management experience. To use the knowledge in the books properly in the society is the real evidence that these students acquire the knowledge completely.

Nevertheless, this advice is not suitable for some courses. There is no appropriate profession to promote their research, such as philosophy. Because what they study are too abstract, it is impossible to prove their theories through working outside academic world. On the contrary, it would distract the professors from the research and instruction work they should concentrate on. Hence, this advice also has some disadvantages.

In conclusion, spending time working outside the academic world in professions is an effective way to improve the quality of instruction at the college and university level. Both professors and students could get much benefit from this method. Otherwise, people should consider its feasibility on different courses.