Whether it is better or worse for students to just study the courses they are interested in is the question stated by the author that needs to be reviewed carefully. Some people believe that it is better to let students choose their favorite courses; however, another group of people maintains an opposite opinion regarding that students should study the syllabi determined by the high schools. Both ideas have their own merits in my opinion.
Should high school students be able to study whatever they want, they may pay more attention to their studies. Students will diligently work on their assignments if they study the materials they like or the courses related to their future goals, even though there is a broad spectrum of interesting courses that they can learn, ranging from literature and politics to natural sciences. For example, if a student wants to become a famous poet in the future, he or she definitely prefers to attend literature classes rather than science classes. By contrast, everyone who loves conducting research in biology likes to study life sciences. On this way, not only will students enjoy attending their classes but also they will study hard to be prepared well for their favorite future careers.
On the other hand, some people believe that all the high schools must provide the best curriculum they can for their students. First of all, they believe that the better courses you teach high school students, the better generation you will have in future. In their opinions, the best possible curriculum is the one that is determined by experts, not students. Therefore, they make students take the courses presented by the high schools. Furthermore, high school students should not focus on a specific topic, for they need to study everything from literature to mathematics. This would help them find their ways for the future. For example, from my own experiences, when I was a high school student I wanted to become a physicist before I began to study biology. The biology courses I took in that time opened doors for me to enter university in the field of life science.
To sum it up, I think that both opinions have their own advantages and disadvantages. One may persuade students to energetically attend their classes because they will be thought the courses they like. The other one makes students study all the assigned courses whether they like them or not, helping them to attain knowledge about different topics. I strongly believe that the two mentioned scenarios should be integrated into a third scenario in that students take both the courses they like and the courses suggested by the high schools' principles simultaneously.
