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

Essay topics:

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.

The claim concluding the need to specify all required courses and eliminate electives for the sake of clear guidance for students is based on the assumption that people generally prefer to follow directions rather than make their own decisions. College is not only a place for absorbing knowledge, but also a place for personal development. To neglect the importance of electives in providing freedom in college and to provide every student with a set path is defying the purpose of tertiary education.

To start with, college is a place for self-discovery as well as the discoveries of knowledge and academic findings. It is a crucial learning process for university students to learn to choose what they want to learn and set their own path. Following directions and walking a set path in life might seem the most convenient and effortless thing to do, given that students do not have to spend time to understand every course brief before enrolling in a class, or to worry about the required credits to graduate with a specific major. However, it is a necessary process that every college student has to go through. In fact, students learn a lot about what they are interested in when choosing electives. Throughout the 4 years of study, they would be able to make informed decisions by themselves, thus preparing them for the future, where more complex decisions have to be made.

Moreover, specifying all required courses neglects the inherent differences in strengths and weaknesses of students studying the same major. For instance, if a student majoring in architecture is more interested in going into the academia and doing research on the history and theory of architectural development, it would be a waste of talent to prohibit him/her to take elective courses in the area but requiring a course in advanced structural calculations. This is not to say required foundation courses on structure are not needed, but to argue that a student should be encouraged to embrace their strengths and to further develop it into their area of expertise. This is the very purpose of college education.

Some may argue that providing a clear direction for students to follow is necessary as electives would dilute students’ focus in their majors. However, for instance, an art student taking a history course may not necessarily be a deviation from her focus on his/her major. The diverse nature of her courses taken can enhance her all-roundedness in her knowledge, further strengthening her studies. Using the same example, the student majoring in art may apply knowledge learnt from history courses to explain how the socio-economic factors in the Renaissance period influence artists in that era, further enriching her knowledge in her expertise.

Therefore, eliminating elective courses in curriculums not only prohibit student’s freedom of choosing with their own interests, but also limits the possibility of developing more all-rounded students in college.

Votes
Average: 5.8 (1 vote)
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Comments

Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 19, column 11, Rule ID: MASS_AGREEMENT[2]
Message: Possible agreement error - use third-person verb forms for singular and mass nouns: 'argues'.
Suggestion: argues
...of college education. Some may argue that providing a clear direction for st...
^^^^^

Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, however, if, may, moreover, so, then, therefore, thus, well, as to, for instance, in fact, as well as, to start with

Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments

Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 17.0 19.5258426966 87% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 10.0 12.4196629213 81% => OK
Conjunction : 15.0 14.8657303371 101% => OK
Relative clauses : 8.0 11.3162921348 71% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 34.0 33.0505617978 103% => OK
Preposition: 74.0 58.6224719101 126% => OK
Nominalization: 15.0 12.9106741573 116% => OK

Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2529.0 2235.4752809 113% => OK
No of words: 479.0 442.535393258 108% => OK
Chars per words: 5.27974947808 5.05705443957 104% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.67825486995 4.55969084622 103% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.989736527 2.79657885939 107% => OK
Unique words: 232.0 215.323595506 108% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.484342379958 0.4932671777 98% => OK
syllable_count: 792.9 704.065955056 113% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.59117977528 107% => OK

A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 6.0 6.24550561798 96% => OK
Article: 4.0 4.99550561798 80% => OK
Subordination: 1.0 3.10617977528 32% => OK
Conjunction: 4.0 1.77640449438 225% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 4.0 4.38483146067 91% => OK

Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 18.0 20.2370786517 89% => OK
Sentence length: 26.0 23.0359550562 113% => OK
Sentence length SD: 73.7645570484 60.3974514979 122% => OK
Chars per sentence: 140.5 118.986275619 118% => OK
Words per sentence: 26.6111111111 23.4991977007 113% => OK
Discourse Markers: 7.05555555556 5.21951772744 135% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 4.97078651685 101% => OK
Language errors: 1.0 7.80617977528 13% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 10.0 10.2758426966 97% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 2.0 5.13820224719 39% => More negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 6.0 4.83258426966 124% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?

Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.401135416827 0.243740707755 165% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.127151732502 0.0831039109588 153% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.111828929368 0.0758088955206 148% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.238467132442 0.150359130593 159% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.133095187634 0.0667264976115 199% => OK

Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 16.7 14.1392134831 118% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 36.63 48.8420337079 75% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.92365168539 111% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 14.6 12.1743820225 120% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.64 12.1639044944 112% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.98 8.38706741573 107% => OK
difficult_words: 123.0 100.480337079 122% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 15.0 11.8971910112 126% => OK
gunning_fog: 12.4 11.2143820225 111% => OK
text_standard: 15.0 11.7820224719 127% => OK
What are above readability scores?

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Rates: 58.33 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.5 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.