Educational institutions should actively encourage their students to choose fields of study that will prepare them for lucrative careers. Write a response in which you discuss your views on the policy and explain your reasoning for the position you take.

The speaker asserts that educational institutions should actively encourage their students to choose fields of study that will prepare them for lucrative careers. I concede that this proposition might bring tangible benefits for students and educational institutions for a short time. However, institutions who put this goal at first place might lose the long-term benefits. Moreover, this decision will impede the development of cutting-edge technologies.

Granted, encouraging students to choose fields of study that will prepare them for lucrative careers might be beneficial for both students and institutions. Students studying in a lucrative working field are not concerned with money and lead an easier life. While their counterparts are under the pressure of house rent, scholar debts and traffic costs, students majoring in a high-paid field can earn their life easily or even financially help their parents and relatives. Working in a lucrative field gives students a sense of independence and a sense of accomplishment. In addition, economic success of students can in turn benefits the institutions. First, successful alumni may give financial supports to schools that can be used to renovate buildings, ameliorate facilities and augment faculties’ salaries. These moneys can help institutions to ameliorate teaching qualities. Second, the financial success obtained by alumni improve institutions’ reputation that will attract more intelligent students. Thus, a positive circle formed which can enhance further the double-win situation.

The speaker’s suggestion seems bring benefits for all parts, the students and the institutions. However, the speaker oversimplified the reality and begs several important questions that will result in harmful consequences. First question is the nature of education. Plato once said that the true education is a group of people freely sharing their understanding about the world and during this process everyone gradually forms their personality and the value. Accordingly, the money-oriented education is not the true education and it will definitely stigmatize the purity of education and teaching. Second question is about to distinguish the lucrative careers among at least thousands type of careers. Even the most successful investors, who earn their lives by recognizing the potential lucrative fields, carry the risk of wrong estimations, how can educational institutions guarantee a lucrative future to their students. It is very possible that the lucrative careers in which students are encouraged to study, will be unprofitable in several years. Under that circumstances, should students change to another lucrative fields of study or not? Constantly adjusting the focus of studying according to profitable industries, students easily lose their studying initiatives and likely regret about earlier decision. In conclusion, the speaker’s suggestion is untenable in front of the reality and it carries the risk of defame the institutions and wrongly guide students into an unprofitable studying field.

Another significant result brought by the speaker’s argument is the stagnant scientific research. Institutions’ encouragement in lucrative careers will absolutely impedes the advance of non-lucrative field, such as the cutting-edge scientific research. However, these non-lucrative studying fields often have far-reaching benefits and are in eager of intelligent students. Taking the research into smart cities as an example, this is a new-born research area which has limited tangible benefits, but it plays an important role in ameliorating people’s life and enhancing social well-being. Another example is the studies into orbital angular momentum of lights, which largely depends on the nations’ financial supports and is to the core technique of the quantum communication. Terraforming, biotechnology, robotics and the like, even though all these cutting-edge technologies could not promise the short-term material benefits, they bring intangible, unquantifiable and far-reaching benefits to humankind. In another word, scientific research portraits human’s future. Speaker’s assertion which ignoring the necessity of studying into non-lucrative fields, will surely impede the development of cutting-edge technologies and render human a dimmer future.

All told, although the speaker’s assertion seems like to bring clear material benefits to students and institutions, it has oversimplified the reality that tends to bring harmful results to students, institutions and the society. First, institutions run the risks of wrongly predicting the lucrative careers of the future and it will make students regret about their decisions. Secondly, promoting material success defame educational institutions who should prioritize knowledge over money. Third, preparing students for lucrative careers impedes the advance of non-lucrative scientific research that benefits all humankind.