Issue No 125 Essay -- Should Education Continue Beyond College?

fenglinger

I strongly agree that education shouldn't end at college graduation and that people should enroll in courses throughout their lifetime. Otherwise, we ultimately risk our careers, our economy, and even our very humanity.

One reason why education should continue beyond college is that specific knowledge and skills needed for most jobs change continually. Workers who neglect to update their knowledge and skills jeopardize not only their jobs and careers but also the opportunity to contribute meaningfully to society - an opportunity that only sufficient mastery of one's chosen profession can afford. Admittedly, some workers can learn what they need to know while on the job. However, in my observation, most workers barely find enough time during a typical workday to accomplish their basic jobs, let alone to stay abreast of the dizzying array of new developments that bear on those jobs.

Moreover, workers shouldn't limit their career-related education to course work in their own fields. Mastery of any profession or field requires some knowledge about a variety of others. For example, an anthropologist can't excel without some knowledge of chemistry and geology. Even computer engineering is intrinsically tied to other fields, even non-technical ones such as business, communications, and media. Few people can reasonably expect to learn, either in college or through independent study after college, all that they need to know about other fields in order to master their own field.

Aside from the sorts of post-college course work that further careers, varied educational pursuits throughout life serve to bring to fruition no less than the learner's own humanity.   Continued course work in psychology, sociology, and anthropology helps adult learners to synthesize their life experiences - thereby gaining a richer understanding of themselves and their place in community and society. Courses in political science, philosophy, theology, and natural sciences help the adult learner gain fresh insight and perspective on humankind's place in the physical and metaphysical worlds. And no person can become truly human without developing, then nurturing through continued study, an aesthetic appreciation of literature, the fine arts, and the performing arts.

Thus, even the broadest and deepest college education is merely a primer for adult life, vocational and otherwise. We should continue to learn new job-related skills, and information, in the interest of advancing the society. But we should also complement those efforts through course work in the sciences, humanities, and arts. We thereby gain the capacity to succeed in career, to find its purpose and meaning, and to understand and appreciate life. To gain thee capacities is to become fully human, which, in my view, should be our ultimate end.

snow_mountain

MM这个作文贴着是让偶们提意见的嘛？ 呵呵， 偶不客气了。

总的来说还不错，但开头部分似乎突兀了点。

还有注意个别用词的准确性。