Educational institutions should actively encourage their students to choose fields of study that will prepare them for lucrative careers.
Over the past century, an explosion of career path options followed the world economic development. Today, a college undergrad student has a significant higher number of options in comparison to what a student had decades ago. Therefore, the question about which career to choose is one of the most critical decisions a student might face. To address the problem, the prompt proposes a policy in which educational institutions would actively encourage students to choose fields of study that would prepare them for lucrative careers. I believe that policy, if implemented, would be a big mistake, generating disastrous unintended consequences. Let’s examine some of them.
To begin, the policy is based on the assumption that educational institutions can adequately forecast which careers will be more lucrative in the near future, once their students finish college and go to the job market. That’s unrealistic, because the economy is extremely dynamic: a lucrative career today might decline in the near future, while unpopular fields of study today might become lucrative after some years. For example, in the middle of last century, nuclear energy was a very popular field of study due to the proliferation of nuclear power plants. Consequently, the career of nuclear engineering was very lucrative. But that didn’t last for long: towards the end of the century, as clean energy became the focus, this career path went into decline, being replaced by other options. What would have happened to a student encouraged to study this field in that transition period? He or she would have wasted valuable years.
Moreover, a more serious consequence of the policy regards the talents of the students and what makes them happy. By encouraging young people to follow lucrative careers, disregading completely who they are, their talents and what makes them happy, the policy risks setting the students to a lucrative but miserable work-life. For instance, let’s imagine a studend whose career choice was influenced by this policy, and ended up working in a field that provides a lot money but no joy; imagine now that this studend would hate his job, and develop depression as a result. Although financially successful, this student would have failed to become a happy professional, and certainly his contributions to society would be below average.
In contrast, a much better policy would be one that encourage students to increase their self-awareness and pursue their passions. A lucrative career should be the consequence of a talent being fully developed and put to use in the field of study it loves. Perhaps the best example is J. K. Rowling. Against her family, who argued that she should have studied a lucrative field, she decided to study English literature and pursue her passion for writing. Millions of children and adults would have missed Harry Potter if she had chosen differently.
In sum, educational institutions have a responsibility to help students succeed, but translating this responsibility into a policy that encourages the pursuit of lucrative careers is dangerous and might result in unintended consequences. A much better alternative would be to encourage students to increase their self-awareness, learn about their talents, and study fields that they are most passionate about.
Comments
Essay evaluations by e-grader
Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, consequently, if, moreover, so, therefore, while, for example, for instance, in contrast, as a result
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 18.0 19.5258426966 92% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 19.0 12.4196629213 153% => OK
Conjunction : 17.0 14.8657303371 114% => OK
Relative clauses : 18.0 11.3162921348 159% => OK
Pronoun: 41.0 33.0505617978 124% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 64.0 58.6224719101 109% => OK
Nominalization: 8.0 12.9106741573 62% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2803.0 2235.4752809 125% => OK
No of words: 526.0 442.535393258 119% => OK
Chars per words: 5.3288973384 5.05705443957 105% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.78901763229 4.55969084622 105% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.89661041422 2.79657885939 104% => OK
Unique words: 263.0 215.323595506 122% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.5 0.4932671777 101% => OK
syllable_count: 884.7 704.065955056 126% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.59117977528 107% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 7.0 6.24550561798 112% => OK
Article: 11.0 4.99550561798 220% => Less articles wanted as sentence beginning.
Subordination: 5.0 3.10617977528 161% => OK
Conjunction: 6.0 1.77640449438 338% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 8.0 4.38483146067 182% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 24.0 20.2370786517 119% => OK
Sentence length: 21.0 23.0359550562 91% => OK
Sentence length SD: 60.8077429052 60.3974514979 101% => OK
Chars per sentence: 116.791666667 118.986275619 98% => OK
Words per sentence: 21.9166666667 23.4991977007 93% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.41666666667 5.21951772744 85% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 4.97078651685 101% => OK
Language errors: 0.0 7.80617977528 0% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 14.0 10.2758426966 136% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 6.0 5.13820224719 117% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 4.0 4.83258426966 83% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.44652864454 0.243740707755 183% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.112238663002 0.0831039109588 135% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0997784727893 0.0758088955206 132% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.257348841798 0.150359130593 171% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0574004292775 0.0667264976115 86% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.6 14.1392134831 103% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 41.7 48.8420337079 85% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.92365168539 111% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 12.7 12.1743820225 104% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.63 12.1639044944 112% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.73 8.38706741573 104% => OK
difficult_words: 135.0 100.480337079 134% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 12.0 11.8971910112 101% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.4 11.2143820225 93% => OK
text_standard: 9.0 11.7820224719 76% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Rates: 70.83 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 4.25 Out of 6
---------------------
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.
Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, consequently, if, moreover, so, therefore, while, for example, for instance, in contrast, as a result
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 18.0 19.5258426966 92% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 19.0 12.4196629213 153% => OK
Conjunction : 17.0 14.8657303371 114% => OK
Relative clauses : 18.0 11.3162921348 159% => OK
Pronoun: 41.0 33.0505617978 124% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 64.0 58.6224719101 109% => OK
Nominalization: 8.0 12.9106741573 62% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2803.0 2235.4752809 125% => OK
No of words: 526.0 442.535393258 119% => OK
Chars per words: 5.3288973384 5.05705443957 105% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.78901763229 4.55969084622 105% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.89661041422 2.79657885939 104% => OK
Unique words: 263.0 215.323595506 122% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.5 0.4932671777 101% => OK
syllable_count: 884.7 704.065955056 126% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.59117977528 107% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 7.0 6.24550561798 112% => OK
Article: 11.0 4.99550561798 220% => Less articles wanted as sentence beginning.
Subordination: 5.0 3.10617977528 161% => OK
Conjunction: 6.0 1.77640449438 338% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 8.0 4.38483146067 182% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 24.0 20.2370786517 119% => OK
Sentence length: 21.0 23.0359550562 91% => OK
Sentence length SD: 60.8077429052 60.3974514979 101% => OK
Chars per sentence: 116.791666667 118.986275619 98% => OK
Words per sentence: 21.9166666667 23.4991977007 93% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.41666666667 5.21951772744 85% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 4.97078651685 101% => OK
Language errors: 0.0 7.80617977528 0% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 14.0 10.2758426966 136% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 6.0 5.13820224719 117% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 4.0 4.83258426966 83% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.44652864454 0.243740707755 183% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.112238663002 0.0831039109588 135% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0997784727893 0.0758088955206 132% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.257348841798 0.150359130593 171% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0574004292775 0.0667264976115 86% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.6 14.1392134831 103% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 41.7 48.8420337079 85% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.92365168539 111% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 12.7 12.1743820225 104% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.63 12.1639044944 112% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.73 8.38706741573 104% => OK
difficult_words: 135.0 100.480337079 134% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 12.0 11.8971910112 101% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.4 11.2143820225 93% => OK
text_standard: 9.0 11.7820224719 76% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Rates: 70.83 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 4.25 Out of 6
---------------------
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.