ISSUE ESSAY

Issue Essay topic: " Question Authority. Only by questioning accepted wisdom can we advance our understanding of the world"

The world that we live in is based on certain belief system which defines how people will inhabit in the society and how they will conduct themselves so that they can live together. This wisdom is accepted by them when they are part of the society. But the growth of the world happens when people identify the flaws of the wisdom, question them and change them into a better one that will lead to the advancement of the society.
A society functions based on certain accepted belief system which lays the guidelines for the accepted behavior of people. That belief system defines the understanding of people of the world. It gives them direction of what is right and wrong in the society. People must comply with the accepted wisdom so that there exists peace and harmony in the society. It helps people understand what can the possible implications of their actions and hence mould their behavior if they want they want the society to remain stable. However, as the world is changing at a face pace, just blindly following the wisdom that has been going on since ages will deter the growth of the world. People need to question the belief system with the changing times to ensure that they evolve and develop to better world. Since questioning is the basic nature of human and hence, ensured its development, this should be applied to accepted wisdom.Every time period has its own demands and hence, people must question the accepted wisdom to understand its underlying flaws. This requires a thorough analysis of what is applicable in the present scenario and thereby calls for corrective action. For e.g. in earlier times when people used to communicate through letters, everybody had accepted that this is the acceptable and the only way of communication. But, the very existence of this belief prompted someone to think about the flaws of this system i.e. the amount of time that it took for the message to be delivered. This very questioning made people to evolve to a better world internet and hence, led to the development of the society. This clearly indicates how important it is to be adaptive with the changing times and modify the widely accepted wisdom to suit to the demands of the very people who follow it.
Since the society is comprised of different groups of people having varying belief system, people must understand why such variation occurs and how can that be seamlessly morphed into unified belief system so that the society functions even better. This will ensure collective growth of all groups of people will occur.
To summarize, I believe that in order to ensure the advancement of the society, people must question the accepted wisdom to understand how they should behave to ensure peace in the society. This will provide a way of changing the existing system to adapt to a newer one that will suit the needs of the changing society and hence, will lead to better development.

ARGUMENT ESSAY

Argument Essay:"The following appeared in the petition presented by classen University students to the school's administration.

The purpose of higher education is to prepare students for the future, but Classen students are at a serious disadvantage in the competition for post-college employment due to University's burdensome breadth requirements. Classen's job placement rate is substantially lower than placement rates of many top-ranked schools. Classen’s students would be more attractive to employers if they had more time to take advanced courses in their speciality, rather than being required to spend fifteen percent of their time talking at Classen taking courses outside of their subject area. We demand, therefore , that the University abandon or drastically cut back on its breadth requirements.

A petition has been raised by the students of Classen University stating that the breadth oriented nature of the university curriculum does not prepare them to be employable, the very purpose for which they are seeking college education. They argue that the curriculum does not focus on the advanced courses related to their pursued subject and hence they don’t have the depth of knowledge which will make them employable. Also, they argue that the college has lower employment rate which does not give them much chance to grab a desired job. Hence, they have called for abandoning the breadth requirement of the curriculum and including advanced courses which will cut the unrequired burden on them and will be help them to be better equipped for the placements.
The action demanded by the students can be met without thoroughly analysis the basis of the arguments that they have raised. First, as per the students, the college does not prepare them well for the competitive job market as its curriculum requires them to study courses that are not completely synced with their own core subjects. This argument can’t be accepted at its face value. There has been no data provided to prove this reasoning. There is a possibility that the students may be lacking in some skills that the firms demand. Students may not be learning the basic subjects properly due to which they are lagging behind. They may not be meeting the eligibility criteria of the firms. They may not possess certain other skills like good communication skills due to which they are not at par with others. The very notion of thinking college to be an employment factory is sadly wrong. Students may not be putting effort to learn their subjects assuming it is the responsibility of the college completely to get them placed, thus easily shrugging off their own responsibility of studying properly.
Secondly, students argue that Classen University has lower placement rate compared to other universities. But no data has been provided to substantiate this. Students may be in poo light of the actual figures and may be just going with the rumours. They must first reach out to the placement cell and confirm the figures based on some reports. They must analyse the placement figures of the past years and identify the correct reasons for why they are low if that is the case. They should match it with other top ranked colleges. If they consider it to be low, they must take the responsibility of setting up a student initiated society that helps students to build the missing skills instead of putting the entire blame on the college.
Cutting the 15% breadth requirement of the curriculum may not be the solution. It should be figured out why such additional courses have been included. The university staff must have certain reasons to include them seeing their importance. Also, there is no proof that adding advanced courses will improve their chances of getting placed. It may make them lack in some requisite skills. Hence, blindly following the idea of cutting such courses is not right
In conclusion, the reasoning of the students can’t be accepted blindly and hence calls for analyzing all the arguments thoroughly. A student- staff committee needs to be set up to discuss curriculum and employment related issues and basis flaws need to be corrected.

Regards,
Arshdeep