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Universities should require every student to take a variety of courses outside the student's field of study. Write a response in which you discuss the extent to which you agree or disagree with the claim. In developing and supporting your position, be sure to address the most compelling reasons and/or examples that could be used to challenge your position. The author claims that every student should be required to take a variety of course outside the student’s field of study. I fundamentally stay in favor of this recommendation for lots of merits it brings but at the same time rendering the requirement compulsory would lead to untoward ends thus has to be avoided. Admittedly, taking courses outside the student’s field of study benefit students in several aspects. Firstly, various courses contribute to the discovery of what students’ true interests are. In China, students basically choose their university and major correspoding to their grade of the college entrance examination, which don’t take their interests into consideration. Thus after entering college, many students find out the major they are learning isn’t what they love. In this case, enabling students to participate in other courses than their own major provides a very good chance to try more field of study and find out what they are really interested in. Besides, many students, no matter which country they belong, when first entering college, are not so sure of their interets. By taking a variety of disciplines is really helpful to locate their true interests, which exerts big influence on the whole route of students’ life. Secondly, studying various courses outside students’ original filed is conducive for students to establish a comprehensive set of values. Nowadays, general education is advocated among universities, which encourages students, regardless of their majors, to take moral courses, history courses and political courses because every individual, before the expertise, is part of the society and live in a certain political, historical and moral context, which impose impact on everyone all the time in spite of specific majors or fields. Therefore it is necessary for students to take diverse courses outside their field of study to develop an integrated and indispensible perspective toward life. Thirdly, requiring students to take a variety of courses outside their field of study give them an edge in the job market. Assume a student majoring in physics also take courses in economy, then when he enters the job market after graduation, he doesn’t have to seek his career as physical reseacher but as an economist as well, which means more flexibility and more opportunities. Therefore, taking various courses outside students’ field of study really brings lots of benefits. However, at the same time, if the requirement for students to take a variety of courses outside their field is compulsory, unpleasant results can be caused. On the one hand, for those students who are really busy with their own field of study , requring them to take extra courses may overwhelm them and even worse, disturb the study of their own field, which is totally counterproductive. On the other hand, for those students that are really interested in what they are majoring in, taking courses of other fields is an impediment to their study. What’s more is that though taking various courses is a good way leading to an integrated value system and more job choice, it is not the only way, students can achieve the same purpose by self studying or other means. To sum up, while there are many merits for students to take a variety of coursed outside their own field of study at universities, including advantages for students to discover what they love, advantages for students to develop a comprehensive set of value and advantges for students to get a good job, it only works on the basis that students are free to choose whether to take these courses or not, otherwise it would render the recommendation counterproductive. | 
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发表于 2013-6-15 09:04:44
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