According to the author’s claim, universities should mandate its students to select a combination of courses that are outside of their study program. While there may exist both positive and negative perspectives for this claim, it is a lucid fact that taking up different courses that are outside of the field of study will actually be good for the students.
We have seen many graduates who excel at their job but do not know anything outside of what they have learnt over years. Some of the people even go to lengths of confessing that they studied the coursework only and did not take courses that actually interest them because those did not add any credits. Therefore, it is a timely need that students being required to take such courses to fulfill the credits.
For an example, imagine if an engineering student who liked the pottery gets to add pottery as a credible course alongside his usual engineering coursework. There is a high possibility that he will be a satisfied individual, whether he ended up as an engineer or pottery artist in the end. And his time at university will be more beneficial to him in future than a regular engineering graduate.
On the other hand, universities will have to hire new staff, enhance infrastructure, revisit examination process et cetera to suit the increased number of students. Therefore, additional costs will be incurred from the university’s end if this claim is put to practice. However, this will attract more local and international students and skilled professors to the universities which will make positive impact. As an example, if a student who has won painting competitions, get to decide to if he should the enter for life science program at the university where he can also score for paintings course, he will most certainly select that program.
Further, courses like Medieval Rome, Classical Instruments who had been running low students for years will get more participation among students since they can earn credit for what they like to do. It is a very important situation given that with this opportunity, such knowledge will not vanish eventually because now the students are just interested in STEM subjects.
But, the range of outside courses available to select should be considerably high. This is because some students might not have things to learn other than their field of study. If they are mandated by law to select an unrelated course to their field, and the available course range should be high for them to choose from. However, it is also a good way to get the students opinions on this claim because students like this, will not welcome the fact that they are forced to take different courses than their study field. Therefore, making this an option can be a viable solution which should be confirmed using a suitable research/survey tool.
Finally, it is vividly clear that author’s claim brings more advantages than disadvantages to the table in terms of both university's side and students' side. The disadvantages have to be evaluated and measures should be discussed further.