Universities should require students to take courses outside their disciplines.
Students coming into university often have little knowledge as to what they want to do in the future, less so as to what they actually want to study. This, coupled with the rapidly evolving job market, means that subjecting students to a holistic education at all levels is a necessity. As such, it is imperative that universities require students to take courses outside of their native faculties.
In the United States many students begin university as young as 18 years old. This stands in stark contrasts to many European states in which students typically enter university at an older age. The benefit of beginning university older is that students have more time to determine what they want to do in their future and to pick the appropriate field of study to get there. Yet deprived of this additional time, American university students typically start university with a lot of confusion. They often change majors and find themselves dissatisfied with their degrees. This could be mitigated by forcing students to explore new realms of study which might open them to new possibilities and help them understand where their interests lie.
Additionally, students twenty years ago could not possibly have imagined the jobs that exist today. Who could have known what a “social media expert” is? The same is true of the time we live in today. Faced with an inherent uncertainty about the future job market, our best bet is to hedge and provide our youth with holistic education that aims to give them knowledge on as many fields as possible. This ensures that no student will find his degree worthless twenty years down the road. One of the main ways this can be achieved is by requiring students to take elective courses to improve their knowledge of other disciplines.
Nevertheless, some may reasonably argue that mandating that students take courses outside their disciplines prevents specialization. A doctor for example, or an engineer, surely must have an extreme degree of competence in their fields. While this is unambiguously true, there is also a clear benefits in these lines of work as well to having some knowledge in other areas. A doctor for example, must have excellent bedside manners, as such allowing medical students to take courses in fields such as psychology or social work may prove beneficial to them overall.
Furthermore, many top earning jobs today are occupied by students of disciplines completely unrelated to that line of work. Many maverick financiers and economists have actually studied engineering! As such allowing young engineers to have a taste of finance may facilitate their vocational later in life.
There are countless benefits to making students take courses outside their disciplines. It allows them to understand where their academic and vocational interests lies, better prepares them for the future job market and gives them the necessary tools to succeed in more than one line of work down the line. As such there is no reason why we should not make such extra-faculty courses a compulsory component of university curricula.
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 108, Rule ID: SO_AS_TO[1]
Message: Use simply 'to'
Suggestion: to
...hat they want to do in the future, less so as to what they actually want to study. This,...
^^^^^^^^
Line 5, column 127, Rule ID: EN_A_VS_AN
Message: Use 'an' instead of 'a' if the following word starts with a vowel sound, e.g. 'an article', 'an hour'
Suggestion: an
... exist today. Who could have known what a 'social media expert' is? The...
^
Line 9, column 200, Rule ID: SENTENCE_FRAGMENT[1]
Message: “As” at the beginning of a sentence requires a 2nd clause. Maybe a comma, question or exclamation mark is missing, or the sentence is incomplete and should be joined with the following sentence.
...ists have actually studied engineering! As such allowing young engineers to have a...
^^
Line 10, column 1, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...itate their vocational later in life. There are countless benefits to making s...
^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, also, furthermore, if, may, nevertheless, so, well, while, as to, for example, such as
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 13.0 19.5258426966 67% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 12.0 12.4196629213 97% => OK
Conjunction : 10.0 14.8657303371 67% => OK
Relative clauses : 14.0 11.3162921348 124% => OK
Pronoun: 45.0 33.0505617978 136% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 71.0 58.6224719101 121% => OK
Nominalization: 5.0 12.9106741573 39% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2605.0 2235.4752809 117% => OK
No of words: 505.0 442.535393258 114% => OK
Chars per words: 5.15841584158 5.05705443957 102% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.74048574033 4.55969084622 104% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.78262848264 2.79657885939 100% => OK
Unique words: 254.0 215.323595506 118% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.50297029703 0.4932671777 102% => OK
syllable_count: 833.4 704.065955056 118% => 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: 4.0 4.99550561798 80% => OK
Subordination: 5.0 3.10617977528 161% => OK
Conjunction: 2.0 1.77640449438 113% => OK
Preposition: 1.0 4.38483146067 23% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 24.0 20.2370786517 119% => OK
Sentence length: 21.0 23.0359550562 91% => OK
Sentence length SD: 43.9289198592 60.3974514979 73% => OK
Chars per sentence: 108.541666667 118.986275619 91% => OK
Words per sentence: 21.0416666667 23.4991977007 90% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.0 5.21951772744 77% => OK
Paragraphs: 6.0 4.97078651685 121% => OK
Language errors: 4.0 7.80617977528 51% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 13.0 10.2758426966 127% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 5.0 5.13820224719 97% => OK
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: 0.382438494961 0.243740707755 157% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.121144983396 0.0831039109588 146% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.146301207888 0.0758088955206 193% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.198769608421 0.150359130593 132% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0810894612932 0.0667264976115 122% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 13.4 14.1392134831 95% => Automated_readability_index is low.
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: 12.65 12.1639044944 104% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.21 8.38706741573 98% => OK
difficult_words: 113.0 100.480337079 112% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.5 11.8971910112 97% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.4 11.2143820225 93% => OK
text_standard: 13.0 11.7820224719 110% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Rates: 62.5 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.75 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.