Writing Feedback / iBT Essay: Finance sports at universities? [4]

I don't agree that we should give the same amount of financial support to social activities and sports at universities as we give to classes and libraries.

Nowadays sports and athleticism is highly professional activities, as are journalism, writing, business, etc. So, succeeding in them needs effort and perseverance. Not many university sports teams or individual student athletes have made their way to a considerable national achievement in sports. This is not surprising considering the high level of professionalism and expertise needed for any outstanding performance in any sports. I can cite an example from my own past. While in college, I was in our university's chess team. I followed the news of chess at the time, and read a few books on chess. I realized that for being a successful chess player, even in on a local scale, one needs to dedicate as much time on studying and practicing chess as a researcher puts into his/her science paper. Most professional chess players spend as much as 12 hours a day examining different chess games and preparing for matches (biographies of Kramnik and Kasparov). To cut a long story short, what I am saying is that one cannot expect too much from a campus student who can afford to spend only a few hours a week on his/her sports. Hence, investment on in such activities does not promise much for the universities. So, I believe that campus sports should not really receive as much financial support as a library for instance.

Also sports and social activities are individual preferences and we need not allocate too much financial support to them. Some people have a passion for journalism, some for pottery making, etc. We cannot accommodate all different activities in universities. And why should we? Universities are for pursuit of science and knowledge. If someone has chosen an academic life, this means that their main objective is other than sportsmanship* sports or craftsman. And if they do have an inclination/compulsion for to/towards them, there are other social bodies to foster that. Universities' job is not to accommodate all personal compulsions.

To sum up, although they are part of any community, I believe that it is not wise to cut the budget for libraries, classes, and other academic pursuits to finance social activities and sports in serious ways.

Writing Feedback / Politicians are the most important people on earth! -- They have the final say [4]

Before you move on to the next sentence, please, first think of an important person on earth, dead or alive. There is a good chance that you have thought of a scientist (Albert Einstein, Edison, etc.), a musician (Jackson, Lady Gaga, Lopez, etc.), a soccer player (Maradona, Zidane, etc.) or a cinema personality (Hitchcock, Tom Cruise, etc.) These are all, no doubt, good candidates, however, I think that the people who have the real power and are capable of controlling the world are politicians.

Science is of course very important, behind all the technology and our understanding of the world. But again, I would maintain that science people are not as influential as politicians. Imagine a scientist has invented something new. Will it come to the public if some politicians disagree with the new product or idea? It was Einstein who discovered the nuclear power, but it was the politicians in the White House who decided to bomb Hiroshima. Even nowadays, in universities around the world, those projects receive the highest budgets that are backed by politics - the nuclear research in Iran in the past few years; space exploration with its astronomical expenses during the cold war; to mention only few.

Decisions about public health, insurance, a country's energy policies, its trade with other nations, wars, all and all are filtered through politics, and need the politicians' approval to see the light of day.

In sum, politicians can change the world by making important decisions about people's lives and the future of the globe. No matter how much scientists warn about global warming, a real and effective action is taken only if they succeed in persuading the politicians. They have the final say on that in a G8 or so summit: "we are going to cut down carbon emission by 16% by 2020...or not!"