TOPIC: ISSUE94 – “Universities should require every student to take a variety of courses outside the student’s field of study because acquiring knowledge of various academic disciplines is the best way to become truly educated.”
WORDS: 577 TIME: 01:40:31 DATE: 2008/12/7 22:45:21
As society’s develop, usually we should be able to manage various knowledge to get a good job. But at the same time, we also need some scientists who study deeply in one field.
I think it is necessary to give students a chance to study knowledge from a variety of fields when they in Banchelor or Master course. We know that in many universities students are obiliged to get credit from the courses which are outside the student’s field, which I think could results from at least three reasons.
Firstly, as technology is more and more complex today, the student who only get knowledge in a narrow aspect is less and less competitive. Most time the employ requirements of company, especially in I.T industry, would be consist of some different parts, which is more than tech skills.
Secondly, most of the students, especially in China, don’t have a idea whether they are really interested in the major they pick at the time they get into university. Because of the heavy pressure of study we have to take when we are in high school, most of us don’t have enough time to consider carefully what is suitable for us mostly. But as we can take a variety of course in university, now we can have a chance to access to what we really want.
Last but not the least, the people who achieve success always manage a variety of knowledge. Our country’s founder, Chairman Mao, was a famous exponent. He was a politics, but also known as strategist and poet. In Europe, Da Vince and Newton were also honored by people for they made great contribute to big development in different fields. I don’t think this is just a coincide. The people who are good at different fields usually could get more various views on one thing than the people who are only addicted into a narrow field. This is because the resources that the former could get inspiration from are more than the latter.
But, it is not sensible to encourage students to take knowledge as more various as possible. No matter whether student is going to do research or not after they graduate, basic skill and knowledge inside their own field is indispensible.
If you’d like to take Ph.D Degree, the depth of knowledge you get into in your field really does matters. I know in HongKong Univ. of Techonology and Science, Ph.D candidates only take four cources in their first year while Master candidates would take nearly ten courses. Because Ph.D’s task is to promote the research in some finite field, which requires that someone have to get deep knowledge in base. As a result, they don’t have much time to take these various cources. It is the same to ungraduate students. Of course we should get a wide range of knowledge during our college time, but we have not to forget what is the most important. Sometimes students go too far away to get back, which may result to they can’t get a satisfied job after they graduate from school.
Now we can get a conclusion that aquiring knowledge of various field should be based on a strong knowledge in our major field. Before you are good at your major field, it is meaningless to take many various courses. But, it is not enough to have a good knowledge in one narrow aspect in the modern society, you also have to explore your interest.

from: kuitree31

issue 42 “Because learning is not a solitary activity but one that requires collaboration among people, students of all ages will benefit academically if they work frequently in groups.”
As the society’s developing, collaboration has played an important role in academic research, where people from different fields could inspire each other. Bio-computer science is such an example which makes interaction between biology and computer science. Inspired by structure of DNA, scientists come up with the idea that we can design the architecture of computer in a new way, which was called bio-computer. Apart from research, commercial company is also encouraged to hire the people who are good at teamwork. Because today the complexity of work is much more than before, no one could learn everything. But with collaboration we can take advantage of every distinct one, which results to something amazing.
But I don’t think that learning in groups is the only way we can acquire knowledge. Different people prefer to think in different way. Most of my friends tend to study with a silent environment. Noise from other people could make them interrupted. Famous physician Albert Einstein liked to stay in the roof of his house without leaving for a few days, when he tried to figure out some mysterious theory. Actually the idea from others will always confuse you, which make you can’t calm down. It’s easy to understand people who work in quiet is more efficient than that work in noise.
In addition, I have to say the idea that children of all ages work frequently in groups is not sensible. I think education should give children a chance to improve the ability of thinking alone, which is quite important. If they don’t have much chance to solve problem alone when they are very young, it’s easy to make them feel more likely to depend on others when they grow up. That’s the reason why your junior school teacher always tells you not to copy homework from others but finish it by yourself.
What decides whether collaboration is good for learning or not? I think that should be considered in different definitions of “learning”.
Firstly, learning could result to study basic knowledge you don’t know before. At this time, to study alone may be more efficient than in crowd. Because there is nothing you can share with others before you know it.
In the other hand, learning also means that inspiration made by people from different academic fields. With collaboration, people could get fresh air from the place where they never step in before. Like Newton says: stand on the shoulder of giants. The ability of how to learn from others also need us cultivate during our academic life.
At conclusion, what we need is not just collaboration or just solitary. We need both of them when we’re learning. We need solitary space to get our own perspective and collaboration could broad our perspective at the same time.
附正文提纲一份：
第一段：学习中的合作确实是件好事啊
第二段：但学习有时候也需要个人的空间
第三段：对于学习基础知识的小孩子，他们需要培养自己思考的能力
第四段：合作好不好，关键在我们对”learning”的定义
第五段：合作、独立都要
ps:issue处女作…