Universities should require every student to take a variety of courses outside the student’s field of study?
Many education policy experts assert that University students should also take up courses that are outside the scope of their field of study. To support their assertation they give many arguments like this will give them more career options to choose from, they will have more job opportunities, and also this might be useful to them if they ever have to be a part of an interdisciplinary project. I personally, completely agree with them on this despite a few counterarguments that can be given.
Starting with their strongest point that this will create more career options for students, it is indeed true that a lot of university students are many times not sure that whether they want to pursue a career in their field of study and want to experiment with some other field. This policy will open many doors for them to explore various other domains and will give them a base that will help them pursue a career in a completely different field of study. Also, many times students realize later on in their career that their current field of work is not rewarding enough for them and they want to transition to another field that is comparatively more rewarding so if they would have taken up courses from other fields in their university, they would have at least a basic overview of other fields of work before they make a transition into them.
Another point that they often put forward is that it will open up more job opportunities because it may not be easy for every student to get a job in their respective field of study, they might have to consider applying for jobs in other fields also. If they would have at least studied a course that would be related to the job that they are applying for they can mention it in their profile and would at least a shot at scoring a job interview. So, this would open up a lot of job opportunities for university students outside their field of expertise like for instance if a student of mechanical engineering would have studied a course of logistics and supply chain he/she can also apply for companies that require supply chain managers, logistics analysts, logistics consultant, etc apart from those that require mechanical engineers and would also have almost an equal chance of getting the job with those whose field of expertise is logistics and supply chain management.
The third argument in support of this claim is that in the present-day and age many companies are demanding candidates that have interdisciplinary knowledge or experience. Due to advancements in science and technology many new specialization fields have come into existence and many companies have projects that require people from different specialization fields but it would be easier to make them work together if not all but some have at least some knowledge or experience in each of the required specialization fields. For instance, many modern-day automobiles provide luxury in the form of electronic devices, and an automobile designer who would have at least some basic if not in-depth knowledge of electronics would be able to make better designs and would be able to understand and work along with an electronics engineer working on the same automobile better.
Although there are a lot of benefits a counterargument that can be given is that it might create a lot of stress and extra work for the students. At times students might also have to study certain subjects that they, later on, may not find interesting after taking it up and it may prove to be a waste of time and energy for the students who want to focus and improve their skills and knowledge in their field of interest. Even though this is a legitimate concern this can be addressed by asking universities to make guidelines that would brief the students on what courses the university will offer and what will they be studying in each course. Also, a student should also do some research on his own behalf before taking up any course outside his field of expertise to make sure that he would be able to cope up with the course if by any chance he loses interest in the mid of the course.
To sum up, making university students take up different courses outside the scope of their field of interest will only prove to be beneficial in getting jobs and by providing them insight into other domains they know very little about.
So, guys, this is my view on this issue please let me know down in the responses what are your opinions should universities require every student to take a variety of courses outside the student’s field of study?
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