issue94

MYcoltingUID: 2563080

TOPIC: ISSUE94 - "Universities should require every student to take a variety of courses outside the student's field of study because acquiring knowledge of various academic disciplines is the best way to become truly educated."
WORDS: 516 TIME: 00:40:00 DATE: 2009-3-10 12:25:19
Is it right that the true education should demand its students to take a variety of courses outside the student's field? The speaker claims so. In my point of view, when faced with the issue that whether other fields should be taken by students or not, it is arbitrary to judge as the speaker asserts, in fact, we should make concrete analysis of concrete problems.

To begin with, the requirement that every student should select courses outside the student's field is necessary because that with the development of economic and technology, the difference among various disciplines is not as apparent as the former, that is to say, more and more fields of study indicates interdisciplinary feather. Consider, for example, the discovery of DNA, which was conducted by Watson and Crick. During the process of the discovery, many other fields' knowledge and technology have been applied into the exploration of DNA, such as physics, mathematics, and so forth. Providing that the two scientists had not been exposed to the knowledge of these fields, it is understandable and reasonable that the research may confront with more difficulties and even hamper the discovery. Turn our attention to another example, finance engineer, which was merely generated for decades, combines the knowledge and feathers with finance, computer and mathematics. Due to the reason mentioned above, the students who have learned relevant knowledge will undoubtedly have more advantage to entry that new field. In a word, learning various knowledge outside one's major provides more opportunities to success.

Moreover, taking various courses in different realms is helpful and beneficial to the development of student's physical and mental health. For instance, through the study of art, the understand of beauty of students will be improved greatly; through listening to music, such as the "fortune" composed by Beethoven, students will gain more courage and confidence to face the unknown future; through philosophy, it will foster in the youth students the moral and outlook on the world and life. On the contrary, without the cultivation of other disciplines, the morality and ethic standard of students may be easily undermined, which, in turn, is harmful to himself and even the whole society. Therefore, with the study of various fields, students can establish correct and optimistic value about life.

Admittedly, though studying various courses has many advantage over the solo major, students should place enough emphasis on their own majors for the reason that the direction of development of students is more likely to be decided by their majors. Common sense tells us that if a student failed in several courses which beyond the highest limit of school, he may be dismissed because of his poor performance, let alone the true education. Thus, encouraging students to take more courses outside their fields should be based on the prerequisite that they have enough time and energy to pay attention to other fields. If not, it is advisable for students not to take a variety of courses.

To sum up, when it comes to the choice in taking various disciplines or not, it is arbitrary to draw the conclusion as the speaker asserts, as far as I am concerned, student's energy and time should be first to be taken into account, and then make decision according to their own situation.