Writing Feedback / GRE: Colleges and universities should specify all required courses [3]

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 decisions.

Nowadays, there is a controversial issue about the choice of courses in the universities and colleges. Some claim that students should be provided with a fix and predefined path as they prefer this approach, while others believe that this is would fetter students and would have unfavourable effects on their performance and interest.

Generally speaking, every person in the world should be given the ability to think of himself and decide based on his/her own thoughts and interests. Confining students with a inflexible study path could cause many problems including lack of interest and they may think that they are fettered by their college or university. In addition to that, science is developing very fast, and even a very specific field of study comprises of many different research and technical areas; therefore, nobody should be forced to study courses related to each of these areas, since in this case there could be many courses to study.

Although providing students with the right to choose between courses based on their interest may help improving their alacrity for learning, there are some disadvantages to that. The most important disadvantage is that some students - due to lack of experience and enough knowledge - may end up with a list of courses that are desperate and at the end he/she would have no clue in any of those technical areas that courses has been chosen from. Let's take software engineering as an example, in the university I had the chance to select between a variety of courses from computer graphics to programming language design; some of my friends chose both of the courses at the end the come up with almost nothing out of any of these courses since they are not related to each other and provide a very basic information on each subject.

To sum up, I believe that students should have the opportunity to select between different courses and subject based on their interests; however, universities and colleges must set some specific compulsory courses to make sure that no student would end up with learning varied unrelated subject.

Thanks :)

Writing Feedback / GRE Analytical: 'fields of study'; everybody has the right to decide for himself [6]

Full title: Educational institutions have a responsibility to dissuade students from pursuing fields of study in which they are unlikely to succeed.

One of the most important things which affect human life is his/her decisions. Many decisions at the time of one's youth could affect his/her entire life, and of the most substantial part of one's youth period is the study period; therefore educational institutions could interfere student's decision making by discouraging them of what might not be suitable for him/her, or it is a human's right to choose freely without any pressure?

Everybody has the right to decide for himself/herself, and this is one of most fundamental concepts of human life; therefore, daunting students of something, just because somebody or even government doesn't prefer it would be assumed as ignoring human rights. Every student, no matter where or when, should be free to choice and encouraged to think before choosing; for example, when I was in high school - in the first year, when we were supposed to choose our major between health sciences, mathematical sciences, and human sciences; many teachers tried to discourage people of choosing either one or two of these majors. Personally, I did not prefer their approach, since they were thinking that we are unable to think and decide correctly, and ignoring our right to decide!

Although human has the right to choose, it is acceptable to help one in making decision; this help could be only favourable if it is done just by providing more information on the matter. In my opinion, this also applies to schools, meaning that educational institutions should only provide enough information for students to increase their chance of making correct decision, and the evaluation method for correct decision is just based on decider's opinion who made it before, and it can only be evaluated after a while.

In conclusion, one should be free to choose and make his/her decision based on the information and facts that he/she has at that particular time, and - in my opinion - nobody else has the right to encourage or discourage the decision maker of his action and thought. Educational institutions, as an advisor, can only help students and their decision making by providing clear and useful information to them.

Thanks a lot!