Claim: Colleges and universities should specify all required courses and eliminate elective courses in order to provide clear guidance for students.Reason: College students—like people in general—prefer to follow directions rather than make their own

It is popularly believed that educational institutions ought to specify all courses and eliminate elective ones in order to give clear guidance for students because students as well as majority of public prefer to follow directions. Although I believe that all courses should be specify, I think that possibility to choose elective courses should be preserved, moreover, I deeply disagree with the reason upon which the claim is based. The reasons of my stance will be discussed in details below.

To begin with, the idea which is stated in the claim about specification of all required courses seems to be reasonable owing to the fact that its realization will guarantee that all graduate students have the same volume of knowledge about subjects which were taught. For the sake of an example, we may take a look at such a profession as surgeon. The proposed policy will assure that future doctors will not only learn all needed subjects such as physiology, anatomy and many others but also that the material taught will be sufficient and similar for all students. It is needed to say that the implementation of the policy will be surely useful in other professions and specializations as well. Therefore, the first part of the claim is positively accepted.

However, the second part of the claim that elective courses ought to be eliminated seems to be unreasonable due to the fact that it will unavoidably lead to at least two serious disadvantages. The first one is that students will not be able to adjust their studying for their interests and requirements of future work. For instance, a future surgeon who is going to work in the Peace Corps after graduation, perhaps, wants to learn more about Africa and culture of the nations which inhabit in it because he will be likely sent to the continent. The second disadvantage is that the fulfillment of the policy will undermine students' motivation to learn and study because the students will have to accept a passive role which keeps no room for demonstration free will. In other words, elective courses should be preserved because their elimination would hurt student’s motivation to have an active point of view on life.

Finally, although I partly concur with the claim as it was demonstrated above, I deeply disagree with the reason owing to the fact that western societies are based on the idea of free will. In fact, freedom is one of the most important achievements of contemporary society which was acquired relatively recently. In other words, almost each person who lives in Europe or the United States of America is taught from childhood to be liable for one's decisions and actions. In fact, this idea has so deep roots in our mentality that we tend to make our decision even in very difficult circumstances. For instance, a psychological research which was conducted with parents of terminally ill children has demonstrated that parents prefer to make decisions about the terminating child's life despite the moral and ethical difficulties which are connected with those decisions and do not give this right to doctors. This example illustrates that the usage of the reason by the author is, perhaps, mistaken.

In conclusion, although I completely concur that colleges and universities should specify all required courses, I believe that the possibility to elect complementary courses should be preserved owing to the fact that it gives students possibility to adopt their studying for their future employment better as well as that the choice of additional courses motivate student to study and learn. However, I disagree with the reason because as far as I am concerned in our culture it is desirable and praiseworthy to make own decisions rather than blindly follow orders.