University should require every student to take a variety of courses outside the student’s field of study.

There is no other time in history like today that the human knowledge is growing explosively and so diverse and yet so deep. A quick reflection on a typical company will show how dramatic it is. A high-tech company nowadays usually comprises management team, and departments of product design, finance, marketing, sales, administration, law, and so on. The product design department comprises various kinds of engineers including project manager, electrical engineers, computer engineers, data scientists, etc. So do other departments. The division of work become so detailed and each should require myriad skills. As our works become more diversified, and the technology become more complex, cooperation also become highly demanded. However, the statement to force every students to take a variety of courses is not convincing. The decision should be left to students to decide.

One of the university primary goals is to teach student to solve problems. From previous example, since the products and the works becomes more varied, to solve problems require multi-dimensional skills, and that is generally impossible for an individual to acquire. Thus, cooperation is given more weight than ever. And how could we cooperate with each others if we barely know their capabilities? Further more, not only the productivity become diverse, but also the product. The trend of industrial is getting closer to customize every product. That means the products will be designed for every single customer in the future. Therefore, it is more and more important for product to meet the needs of humanity.

A good case in point would be Steve Job, the former CEO of company Apple, he learned in inter-disciplinary way, exposed himself to various subjects, from calligraphy to electronic engineering. By combining arts, humanity, and technology, he was able to build the sophisticated product, iphone. Its design is so simple and elegant and easy to use even for the elder and the children. Most of the technology to build iphone have been exist for a long time, so from this perspective, it’s not making any innovation. But iphone took a step further into consideration of its customer where no other companies had done. It is a perfect combination of technology, humanity, and art. As Jobs once said: “You can’t connect the dots looking forward, you can only connect the dots looking backwards. So you have to trust the dots will somehow connect you to the future.”

However, the university should not require students to do so, but left the decision for themselves. Students only take couple years to finish their degree. Is it justified to take out time from the precious period to study subjects that will have no relevance to the career that the students plan to pursue? If someone is studying medicine, will it be justified to force him to study history? It is true that knowledge of history will definitely make him educated as he will aware of historical facts which are essential for being well-informed. Nevertheless, would this knowledge make such a difference to his life that it should be mandatory for him?

It is a well known fact that students have to appear for various tests to prove their capabilities in a particular subject. They are given admissions to various programs of study depending on their performance to such test. Therefore, will all students be able to study all subjects of the university level with equal ease? If a student has more aptitude for Mathematics may not be in a position to study Biology that easily. If he is forced to take a course in Mathematics, it might eventually turn out that he spends more time on Mathematics than Biology which is his main subject. Hence, it is possible that force a student to study not in his main field could be detrimental to him eventually.

To sum up, over time, the works today become much more diversified than usual, cooperation is given more weight, and thus the inter-disciplinary knowledge become more important as well. But forcing a student to take courses outside their field may not help in getting better skill in inter-discipline knowledge, and could even make it worse. Therefore, it is better to leave the right of decision back to students, where they can evaluate if themselves have such time or ability to do so.