【09年2月-3月GRE作文冲刺组】 issue50

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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.


Should all faculty be required to spend time working outside the academic world in professions relevant to the courses they teach in order to improve the quality of instruction at the college and university level? The speaker asserts so. In my view, it depends on which field they teach, fields like computer science, management and medicine, they should be taught with faculty’s working experience, but it is not necessary for fields like physics and chemistry, and too much attention to outside work will bring negative effects to the teaching quality.

With the rapid development of society, science and economy, knowledge in the teaching books changes so quickly that students have quite difficulty in keeping up with it, it is not exaggerating that the knowledge students learned yesterday becomes out-of-date today. Such situation typically happens to the computer science field, those computer programmers have to work with a lot of renewal glossaries and software everyday, it is impossible for students learn these from books. But if a teacher who works in the computer company when they are also teaching students, he would make it possible for students to learn the state of the art. And on the other hand, the faculty bring a lot of working experience to them, this will be benefit when they are hunting jobs.

However, we should never overlook the negative effects if we put too much attention to the importance of outside work. The more time faculty spends in the outside work, the less they spend in preparing the courses. After all, the energy and time people possess is limit, we can consider if a teacher has little sleep due to overwork in the company, then how could he perform well in the classroom? Finally, I concede positive effects of outside work, but it should be based on their good performance in the classroom, if not, it will only decrease the quality of instruction.

Lastly, I want to point out that not all faculty should work outside the academic world, it is not necessary for faculty in the physics and chemistry field. Spending time on the outside work is a waste of time and energy, they could do their research in the school labs, and students have opportunity to take part in the experiment and research, it is good for those who want to be teaching assistants after graduation.

In conclusion, I concede that faculty in the field of computer science working outside the academic field will improve the quality of instruction. Nevertheless, it will also bring negative effects to the education quality if they put too much attention to it, and faculty in the physics and chemistry field don’t have to do so, they and their students could do the experiments in the labs.