GRE sample issue pool essay topic 133

Some people believe that universities should require every student to take a
variety of courses outside the student's field of study. Others believe that
universities should not force students to take any courses other than those that
will help prepare them for jobs in their chosen fields.

Write a response in which you discuss which view more closely aligns with
your own position and explain your reasoning for the position you take. In developing
and supporting your position, you should address both of the views presented.
Education system developed by human beings has kept them ahead of every living
organism in this world, and they developed Universities to aggrandize human intellect. The
prompt suggests that there has been diversity in belief among people regarding whether
University courses must me in variety of field or it should be fixed curriculum. I strongly agree
with the belief that University courses should be flexible for students due to these two reasons.
First of all, people born without any intellect, they learn everything in the process of
growing up, and having wide choice of courses in the University makes their knowledge more
diverse, thus having more ability to think. For instance, research done by Harvard university,
where graduates with fixed curriculum and with flexible curriculum, showed that graduates who
had studied more flexible curriculum had wider approach to solve problems in their field
compared to the ones who studied fixed curriculum. In addition, graduates with flexible
curriculum scored higher in IQ test compared to the graduates with fixed curriculum. Thus, it is
crucial for students to have a flexible education helps them to think diversly, and even are
ahead of the one who are given fixed courses to study.
Also, students start university during the exploring phase, and to give them a fixed set of
courses to study is like not giving them chance to explore, it is more like training a machines. To
explain further I would like to give an example, Steve Jobs , who is a university drop out and
founder of one of the most elite companies in the world, once said that he found his passion
because he being a computer science student was given chance to study calligraphy. Not only
Steve Jobs, there are many famous people who found passion and aren’t a university graduates
have been successful because of diversity in their study option. From above stance we can
have an idea that university is a place to gain knowledge, explore scenarios, and have
experience.
However, the people who believe university course must be fixed may say having a wide
variety of knowledge may confuse student and they end up being “jack of all, master of none”.
But it stills give them chance to explore, follow their passion, and makes them aware of what
they really want to do in their life. Furthermore, student will get chance to experience fun with
learning due to the varieties of courses because having a fixed course is too monotonous.