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 recommendation and explain your reasoning for the position you take. In developing and supporting your position, describe specific circumstances in which adopting the recommendation would or would not be advantageous and explain how these examples shape your position.
Graduating high school, some students seek for further academic learning in universities. During their journey to become well-edified professions, they could expose themselves only to the area they are currently interested in or, as suggested in the given statement, to more diverse fields of study, which is not directly related to their majors. Although I don’t agree with the statement that universities should force their students to take other courses other than their majors, I still agree with the idea that there are more benefits in opening doors for students to a variety of courses than making them strictly focus on their own major.
Firstly, it should be pointed out that students start their university as early as 18 years old. This means that they are still growing and forming their idea of what they want to study and which career path they want to walk through their life. Thus, closing doors to other field of study as soon as they choose their own field of study in this period may result in deleterious outcome, since students may change their mind as they learn more about themselves and the society they are living in. When I was in university, for example, though I was a Business major, I took a variety courses in other majors, such as Civil Law, Media and Communication, Politics, Modern History, and etc. The widened learning experiences that I exposed myself in this period helped me to understand how this society was working, and consequently changed my career choice to become a Social Worker. As shown by my personal experience, universities should encourage their students to take various courses out of their majors.
Secondly, obtaining a variety of knowledge and skills in university is favored in this modern society, which has propensity for heterogeneity. In this modern world, successful people are those who understand how different realms of study can be merged and converged together to make a great synergy. Steve Jobs, for example, had a profound understanding of computer programing, of course, but he also had a good grasp of design and aesthetic, which he obtained in the Calligraphy course. Also, there are a few emerging area where Computational Science and Social Science are merged together to better solve the pressing societal issues. Therefore, it would be beneficial for students if they can broaden their knowledge in different field of study by taking courses out of their main interests.
Of course, some may still argue that taking other courses when students can focus on their own study may turn out to be nothing but wasting time and even financial resources. Such argument can be convincing when it comes to very few students who have no doubts in their own major they had chosen when they were 18 years old and would never change their career for whole their life. However, in reality, the majority of students change their major and their jobs. According to an article on New York Times, approximately 40% of university graduates are working in the profession that is irrelevant to their major in university. Thus, universities should minimize barriers to encourage their students to take courses out of their majors.
To sum, despite the benefits of focusing only on the field of study a student has chosen, I believe that universities should open doors for their students to obtain learning out of their field of major. Given the fact that the majority of students change their majors or have their jobs that are irrelevant to their major, taking a variety of courses would be beneficial for the students to make a well-informed decision.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
-------------
arguments: OK
-------------
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.0 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 20 15
No. of Words: 603 350
No. of Characters: 2944 1500
No. of Different Words: 263 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.955 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.882 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.583 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 206 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 148 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 99 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 57 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 30.15 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 13.104 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.6 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.329 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.518 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.088 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 680, Rule ID: AND_ETC[1]
Message: Use simply 'etc.'.
Suggestion: etc.
...ommunication, Politics, Modern History, and etc. The widened learning experiences that I...
^^^^^^^^
Discourse Markers used:
['also', 'but', 'consequently', 'first', 'firstly', 'however', 'if', 'may', 'second', 'secondly', 'so', 'still', 'therefore', 'thus', 'well', 'for example', 'no doubt', 'of course', 'such as']
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance in Part of Speech:
Nouns: 0.227067669173 0.240241500013 95% => OK
Verbs: 0.162406015038 0.157235817809 103% => OK
Adjectives: 0.0781954887218 0.0880659088768 89% => OK
Adverbs: 0.0436090225564 0.0497285424764 88% => OK
Pronouns: 0.0872180451128 0.0444667217837 196% => Less pronouns wanted. Try not to use 'you, I, they, he...' as the subject of a sentence
Prepositions: 0.132330827068 0.12292977631 108% => OK
Participles: 0.0466165413534 0.0406280797675 115% => OK
Conjunctions: 2.66327096226 2.79330140395 95% => OK
Infinitives: 0.0360902255639 0.030933414821 117% => OK
Particles: 0.00300751879699 0.0016655270985 181% => OK
Determiners: 0.0571428571429 0.0997080785238 57% => OK
Modal_auxiliary: 0.0255639097744 0.0249443105267 102% => OK
WH_determiners: 0.0240601503759 0.0148568991511 162% => OK
Vocabulary words and sentences:
No of characters: 3623.0 2732.02544248 133% => OK
No of words: 602.0 452.878318584 133% => OK
Chars per words: 6.01827242525 6.0361032391 100% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.95335121839 4.58838876751 108% => OK
words length more than 5 chars: 0.355481727575 0.366273622748 97% => OK
words length more than 6 chars: 0.267441860465 0.280924506359 95% => OK
words length more than 7 chars: 0.182724252492 0.200843997647 91% => OK
words length more than 8 chars: 0.101328903654 0.132149295362 77% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.66327096226 2.79330140395 95% => OK
Unique words: 269.0 219.290929204 123% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.446843853821 0.48968727796 91% => OK
Word variations: 53.9885015105 55.4138127331 97% => OK
How many sentences: 21.0 20.6194690265 102% => OK
Sentence length: 28.6666666667 23.380412469 123% => OK
Sentence length SD: 55.7972520231 59.4972553346 94% => OK
Chars per sentence: 172.523809524 141.124799967 122% => OK
Words per sentence: 28.6666666667 23.380412469 123% => OK
Discourse Markers: 0.904761904762 0.674092028746 134% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 4.94800884956 101% => OK
Language errors: 1.0 5.21349557522 19% => OK
Readability: 55.4108527132 51.4728631049 108% => OK
Elegance: 1.38461538462 1.64882698954 84% => OK
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.348786662369 0.391690518653 89% => OK
Sentence sentence coherence: 0.122453861535 0.123202303941 99% => OK
Sentence sentence coherence SD: 0.0821151440452 0.077325440228 106% => OK
Sentence paragraph coherence: 0.541647613015 0.547984918172 99% => OK
Sentence paragraph coherence SD: 0.149072550985 0.149214159877 100% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.146586689875 0.161403998019 91% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0771484482963 0.0892212321368 86% => OK
Paragraph paragraph coherence: 0.433791638708 0.385218514788 113% => OK
Paragraph paragraph coherence SD: 0.0687134280856 0.0692045440612 99% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.268836526915 0.275328986314 98% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0612641721741 0.0653680567796 94% => OK
Task Achievement:
Sentences with positive sentiment : 12.0 10.4325221239 115% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 3.0 5.30420353982 57% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 6.0 4.88274336283 123% => OK
Positive topic words: 11.0 7.22455752212 152% => OK
Negative topic words: 3.0 3.66592920354 82% => OK
Neutral topic words: 6.0 2.70907079646 221% => OK
Total topic words: 20.0 13.5995575221 147% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
---------------------
Rates: 50.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.0 Out of 6
---------------------
Note: the e-grader does NOT examine the meaning of words and ideas. VIP users will receive further evaluations by advanced module of e-grader and human graders.