Educational institutions should actively encourage their students to choose fields of study in which jobs are plentiful Write a response in which you discuss your views on the policy and explain your reasoning for the position you take In developing and s

Over the past few decades, college tuition fees have been rising at a precipitous pace with many universities charging like 70-80k dollars per year in tuition alone. The prompt proposes that universities should persuade its students to pick disciplines which have a high number of employment opportunities and the contention does seem propitious at first glance. However, I mostly disagree with this stance because of two reasons, which I will elucidate below.

First of all, students are better off pursuing fields in which they have more interest because it is what that will drive them to hustle relentlessly, even in testing times, to focus and work hard towards their dreams. For example, I personally know a student at our university who was a history major but took a statistics class as elective to try out something new. He developed such an immense interest in the field of statistics that every single elective he ever took afterward was from our statstics department. He even, later on, decided to pursue his Ph.D. in statistics. Had he been discouraged to only continue his studies in history—has myriad of job opportunities post graduation in our country—, he might not have discovered his true passion which I believe is pivotal in successfully finishing one’s research. This I believe is a good enough reason why one should rather pursue what they like, regardless of the fact whether the field has good number of jobs or not, in order to truly succeed in one’s endeavour.

Secondly, all jobs are valuable and if everyone just decides a major which has more number of jobs, then the number of skilled people required in other jobs/industries would fall adversely which doesn’t sound auspicious to the interests of both the student and the society as a whole. For instance, computer science related jobs are numerous in our country and they do offer competitive pay and an eclectic of perks as well which makes them quite attractive to students—future employees. And if every college encourages its students to pick computer science as their disciplines, then all other equally important job positions—doctors, civil engineers, cooks, etc.—would likely remain unfilled, for unforeseeable future in many cases, due to a lack of much needed skilled workforce. Therefore, I do feel that this kind of recommendation would have unintended repercussions, such as making it harder for many corporates and government agencies to fill important positions in a timely manner.

In conclusion, I would like to say that for the aforementioned two reasons, universities shouldn’t encourage its students to only pursue disciplines that have plenty of job opportunities. If the recommendation is implemented in its current state, it would have detrimental ramifications that have the potential to hamstring the society and the entire country.