A nation should require all of its students to study the same national curriculum until they enter college.

Write a response in which you discuss the extent to which you agree or disagree with the statement and explain your reasoning for the position you take. In developing and supporting your position, you should consider ways in which the statement might or might not hold true and explain how these considerations shape your position.

Students are allowed to choose which subjects they are going to study in school. The discipline of their study deals in either science, arts or commerce mostly, although it varies from country to country. The prompt suggests that a nation should make it mandatory for its students to study the same national curriculum until they graduate from school. Despite there being a sound argument against the suggestion, I mostly agree with it for two reasons.

Students are the backbone of a nation and school is the nascent phase of a student. By increasing the number of subjects a student has to study, increases the stress on them. As their brains are developing, they might not be able to cope with the increased pressure of studies which might instead exacerbate the state of their studies. For example, a student might not be good at advanced mathematics and it being forced on them may make them unable to cope with the complex theorems. It would consequently lead them to suffer from frustation. If the frustation festers, it could lead to further depression which might even turn out to be suicidal. Rate of suicide is at its peak in the juvenile age group. Thus, the increased pressure of studies could be noxious to the mental well-being of a student and might even lead to unfortunate outcomes.

On the contray, arguments can be made in favor of the bigger syllabus caused by the standard national curriculum. Prior to getting themselves admitted to a college, the students must sit for the admission examination, the results of which determine which majors a student can choose from. Students of one discipline in school do not know much about the other disciplines in school which results in indecisiveness in picking the suitable major in college. Suppose that, a student from science discipline does not know much about the subjects of finance discipline, so if they get option to choose business majors in college after the admission test, they feel conflicted about whether it is the right major for them or not. If the students were to be taught following the same national curriculum, they would not have to face the issue as they are already well-versed in the subject. Being able to pick a suitable major could possibly also lead to them feeling happy about their career path in the future.

Further, even if you pick major related to your discipline from school, you have to study courses from other majors. College teaches you advanced knowledge about your major and the topics covered by the major are influenced by disciplines other than its own. For instance, a civil engineer mostly deals in subjects related to structure and soil, but they are also obliged study sociology, anthropology, economics etc.; subjects which are not from science background. A construction megaproject has tremendous impact on society thus they need to understand consensus of society about the project. They also need to be well-versed in economics to maintain the cost of the porject. So, when a student enters college and has to study subjects that are foriegn to their school discipline of choice, they feel flustered. An unified national curriculum where students learn the rudimentary knowledge of all disciplines would mitigate the issue.

Whether a nation should make all the students follow a unified national curriculum or not is an intricate discourse as solid arguments can be made for both sides. While using the same national curriculum might increase the pressure on some students, they are able to make better choices when choosing majors and studying in college because of it.