Issue50 【Aero小组】 号外

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One of the main purposes of education is to adapt the students to the society, concerning about this, I fundamentally agree that most of the teachers in college should spend time outside the academic field to gain some practical information. However, having a consideration of those faculties who are related to a pure theoretical research, there is no need to compel them to leave the college for practical experience.

When it comes to most field, only when the results of research comes to human’s daily life can knowledge show its value. Consider it is an age of “knowledge explosion”, in every minute there are new discoveries, new methods, and new problems. If researchers are limited in the academic world only, they will undoubtedly lose the apperception of a new field. By participating in practical work, they gain information of the need of society, and when they come back to school, they will have a fresh viewpoint and from which they can offer better guidance to students. If researchers are limited in familiar academic fields only, the information or knowledge the students get from them would have little value when it comes to a practical problem. Also some outdate knowledge would never be pick up and cancelled from the curriculum and the knowledge might be never used when students doing a practical job.

Another benefit scholars can gain from a period of time of doing practical job is that by working in a company, they know what the companies need, then they can start a research in the field they can benefit more or they can co-operate with the companies and gain some financial support from the companies. It is well-known that more and more young scientists and fresh PHD leave the area of academic researches because of a low lever of income. If we are concerned about a long-term development of science, we should make no effect to stop this tend. I advocate a practical research because it can bring researchers both academic financial support and personal benefits. Some people may think that scholars should not pay much attention to money, however, in some academic field, only when a large amount of financial support is offered can the research keep running. With the assistance from companies, scholars are more likely to gain a quicker and larger achievement.

However, when it comes to some pure theoretical fields, such advocation should be prudent considered. Astrophysics is an apt example. As far as I know, there are not many companies or corporations whose managements conclude the area of astrophysics. The faculties can not find appropriate jobs outside the academic world at all. Also, in these fields the most important thing is their academic achievement, rather than the practical application- if there is any. Another situation we should take into account is that it is entirely possible that after spending a lot of time in working in a company, some excellent scholars might leave the academic area according to the better payment of companies than universities.

In conclusion, when make a suggestion, one should think more aspects and the influence of the suggestion, it is true that in most area, by spending time working outside the academic world, scholars might benefit from both latest information and potential financial support. However, we should also consider that there is no need to compel researchers in theoretical areas to leave their lab. Moreover, before suggest scholars to leave universities temporarily, we should consider how to prevent them from leaving universities forever.