As more and more people have the chance to attend university, and everyone has their own appetite and taste. The original principle of teaching setting that requires the students to attend certain course is doubted; therefore a dramatic comes along the query debate weather classes should be optional for students. Some people hold the opinion that university should require the students to attend classes because they take for granted that everyone is same without distinguished characteristics, and the accordant classes standards is helpful to foster people that are accustomed to obey. It’s true that some people who have a strong sense of discipline and tent to follow rules docilely will come into being, but considering the inevitable fashion of globalization and the diversity of the world, I must say this attitude is outdated. On the contrary, the new idea that students should have the freedom to determine the classes they’d like to attend keeps pace with time, there are a lot of advantages if the classes are optional for students. First, students who have right to choose class to attend can pursue what they are interested in and good at, and then it will fulfill their talent or potential in certain fields. Let me set Steve Jobs, CEO of the Apple Computer Inc., as an example. When he was in Reed College, he couldn’t find any value in the courses that the college set as requirement so he dropped out after the first six months. Then he stayed around the campus and were deeply touched by the hand calligraphy in Reed College’s beautiful posters, so he dropped in the calligraphy class, and in which, he learned how to distinguish the space between different letters’ combinations, how to make the typography. Maybe, at that time, he just followed his heart and intuition and didn’t expect any benefit from the course. But ten years later, not until he created the unique typography of word in the Macintosh, did he realize it was the best decisions he have ever made to attend the calligraphy class. What I want to tell is not encouraging us to drop out of school; instead, it could be much reasonable and better if the school would set some optional classes to let us to pursue what interests us. Additional, the optional classes will develop your ability to study without teacher’s guidance. It is known to all, if the university doesn’t set the superior standard of curriculum, there will be more courses because everybody’s taste is different. Let put it this way, if the class of English Literature, luckily enough, is used to be experimented as an optional classes, I mean, it is divided into several parts into different genres such as narratives, fictions, novels in order to give the students a plenty of choices, then, the teachers will be in lack, so it’s essential and necessary for students to have a high level of disciplines to study for themselves if they really want get something useful from these optional classes. Let me draw a conclusion, indeed, there are some minor advantages if we continue the formal way of requiring students to attend classes, but compared with the benefits we get if we alter the new trend of giving the students freedom, they are almost can be ignored. So, I believe, optional classes are the best solution, if we really see it from students’ perspective. |