You should spend
about 40 minutes on this task.
Write about the
following topic:
|
Some people think that universities should provide
graduates with the knowledge and skills needed in the workplace. Others think
that the true function of a university should be to give access to knowledge for
its own sake, regardless of whether the course is useful to an employer.
What, in your opinion, should be the main function of
a university?
|
Give reasons for
your answer and include any relevant examples from your own knowledge or
experience.
Write at least 250
words.
Complete Essay 1
The notion that universities must choose between providing students with
skills relevant to an employer or teaching them knowledge for its own sake
relies on a false dichotomy. In fact, teaching students knowledge for its own
sake develops key skills that many employers are wise enough to value highly.
Universities have traditionally been places where students are taught to
think and reason in general, as opposed to community colleges or vocational
schools, which teach specific skills and trades. It is foolish to say, however,
that this means that universities do not teach skills valuable to an employer.
On the contrary, knowing how to track down information, evaluate sources, think
critically, and approach problems innovatively are all highly valuable
workplace skills.
They are in fact the skills necessary for high level jobs in just about
any business. Manual workers, even highly skilled manual workers, may not need
to be good thinkers, but anyone who aspires to one day enter the world of
management does. They need to have a decent understanding of human psychology,
of philosophy (ethics at the very least), and of sociology. It helps too to be
able to construct and deconstruct narratives, which is the art at the center of
the study of literature, and to be able to draw on the moral lessons found in
the study of history and mythology. In short, it pays to have a liberal arts
education, a university education that has encouraged the pursuit of education
for its own sake.
Creative and critical thinking are also prerequisites for many other
careers. For instance, a person with a degree in English Literature can
reasonably hope to break into journalism, even though it is possible to take
degrees that train one specifically for that job. Likewise, someone with proven
writing skills may be more valuable to a computer company than one trained in
programming. A person who has good language skills can usually pick up a
computer programming language fairly quickly, and has the added benefit of
being able to explain the program to clients unfamiliar with technical jargon.
Thus, it is clear that universities, in teaching people to be good thinkers
in general, prepare people to work a wider range of jobs than any more focused
program ever could.
Complete Essay 2
Universities should of course teach skills that will be generally useful
in the workplace, but they should not necessarily be focused purely on training
people to be employees. Students are going to grow up to be more than just
workers. They will also be citizens, relatives, and friends. These are
important roles, and the skills taught at university in what might be termed a
“classical liberal arts” education prepare people to fulfill them.
Consider, for instance, that in a democracy every person has a
responsibility to help choose the government of the nation. To make an informed
choice when voting, it is necessary to be able to do research, to figure out
what candidates have said, and to find the facts necessary to evaluate the
reasonableness of their claims. It is necessary too to be able to think
critically, and to identify questionable premises and logical fallacies in the
arguments one reads. These skills might not be necessary to ring up sales at a
cash register, or to synthesize a new bacteria in a lab, or to do any one of a
host of jobs lying in between in the spectrum of complexity. However, they are
clearly useful to everyone as citizens.
In the same way, humans are social animals. As such, we are constantly
dealing with others, both at work and in our personal lives. How should we
react when others hurt us? How can we resolve ethical conflicts? For that
matter, how do we even identify such conflicts when we encounter them? These
sorts of question may not occur on the job, or at any rate not occur
specifically and predictably as part of a given job, but people need to know
how to answer them nonetheless.
Universities should be places that educate people in such a way as to
prepare them to handle adult life. This naturally includes providing skills
that will be useful to employers, but that is but a small subset of the skills
people need. It is also the least important. Businesses will train new
employees in specific skills if those skills are really vital to the job. No
other institution or organization will train young adults to be good people or
citizens. That, then, is left wholly to universities, and must be considered
its proper charge.
