Claim: Colleges and Universities should specify all required courses and eliminate elective courses in order to provide clear guidance for students.
Reason: College students - like people in general - prefer to follow directions rather than make their own decisions.
Is it reasonable for colleges and universities to specify a fixed curriculum and eliminate elective courses because it's easy for students to follow a preset path rather than making their own decisions? In my opinion, it's the primary responsibility of educational institutions to help their students become well-rounded individuals and to guide them to choose a suitable career path according to their interests. I will highlight various scenarios indicating the significance of elective courses in the process of learning, especially for higher studies.
The first perspective to be taken into account is elective courses outside one's field of study. One cannot deny the contribution of such courses in helping students become well-rounded individuals. For instance, consider a student of computer science. Elective courses from a variety of fields such as humanities, sociology, philosophy, arts, and literature can not only help him to gain a better perspective, but also it can invoke a life-long interest in that field. Although introductory, this knowledge will help students to analyze real-world issues or problems with multiple viewpoints.
Secondly, it would be a mistake to narrow our view only to elective courses outside one's major. They are equally important in one's own field of study, mainly to determine the career they want to pursue in that field. Extending our example of computer science students, there are many possible sub-fields to choose from for a professional career. This includes computer networks, network security, machine learning, artificial intelligence, system design, cyber security, and many more. Each one of these courses follows a distinct career path. It's not at all acceptable to fix some of these courses as required and force students to study those. The choice should be given to students to select these core subjects based on their passion and the role or designation they see for themselves in the future.
One may argue that it is not viable to allow students to choose from elective courses because - (1) Elective courses outside one's field of study are not required for getting a job, and (2) Students may choose a core subject from a pool of courses without considering the job prospects or their interests, simply in the spur of the moment, and may lose interest once they actually dive deep into the subject. To solve the first problem, elective courses not related to one's major should be without credits so that the students who are truly interested in the subjects will pursue such courses, and it won't have any deleterious effect on the grades of the core subjects. The second problem can be solved simply by providing a comprehensive walkthrough of the curriculum of elective courses, possibly some demo lectures on these subjects (recorded or otherwise). This will help students to be sure of their decision for a particular course.
In conclusion, a flexible approach allowing students to choose the courses they want to study is feasible unless colleges and universities implement above mentioned or similar policies. Imposing a fixed curriculum to study will undermine the very purpose of higher studies, which is to help students choose their field of interest in their major, and be skilled at it.
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 218, Rule ID: IT_IS[17]
Message: Did you mean 'it's' (='it is') instead of 'its' (possessive pronoun)?
Suggestion: it's; it is
...ing their own decisions? In my opinion, its the primary responsibility of education...
^^^
Line 5, column 545, Rule ID: IT_IS[6]
Message: Did you mean 'it's' (='it is') instead of 'its' (possessive pronoun)?
Suggestion: It's; It is
...courses follows a distinct career path. Its not at all acceptable to fix some of th...
^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, also, but, first, if, may, second, secondly, so, well, for instance, in conclusion, of course, such as, in my opinion
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 16.0 19.5258426966 82% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 15.0 12.4196629213 121% => OK
Conjunction : 18.0 14.8657303371 121% => OK
Relative clauses : 6.0 11.3162921348 53% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 41.0 33.0505617978 124% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 78.0 58.6224719101 133% => OK
Nominalization: 8.0 12.9106741573 62% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2745.0 2235.4752809 123% => OK
No of words: 523.0 442.535393258 118% => OK
Chars per words: 5.24856596558 5.05705443957 104% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.78217453174 4.55969084622 105% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.86540510967 2.79657885939 102% => OK
Unique words: 260.0 215.323595506 121% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.497131931166 0.4932671777 101% => OK
syllable_count: 873.0 704.065955056 124% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.59117977528 107% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 8.0 6.24550561798 128% => OK
Article: 4.0 4.99550561798 80% => OK
Subordination: 1.0 3.10617977528 32% => OK
Conjunction: 7.0 1.77640449438 394% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 3.0 4.38483146067 68% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 21.0 20.2370786517 104% => OK
Sentence length: 24.0 23.0359550562 104% => OK
Sentence length SD: 77.6248025912 60.3974514979 129% => OK
Chars per sentence: 130.714285714 118.986275619 110% => OK
Words per sentence: 24.9047619048 23.4991977007 106% => OK
Discourse Markers: 6.04761904762 5.21951772744 116% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 4.97078651685 101% => OK
Language errors: 2.0 7.80617977528 26% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 14.0 10.2758426966 136% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 2.0 5.13820224719 39% => More negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 5.0 4.83258426966 103% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.310442188762 0.243740707755 127% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.101231690997 0.0831039109588 122% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0905084792805 0.0758088955206 119% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.192113538818 0.150359130593 128% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0738375019479 0.0667264976115 111% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 15.7 14.1392134831 111% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 38.66 48.8420337079 79% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.92365168539 111% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 13.8 12.1743820225 113% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.47 12.1639044944 111% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 9.02 8.38706741573 108% => OK
difficult_words: 139.0 100.480337079 138% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 15.5 11.8971910112 130% => OK
gunning_fog: 11.6 11.2143820225 103% => OK
text_standard: 16.0 11.7820224719 136% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 66.67 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 4.0 Out of 6
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Note: the e-grader does NOT examine the meaning of words and ideas. VIP users will receive further evaluations by advanced module of e-grader and human graders.