First of all I must say that anyone asking a university to teach them job skills is obviously in the wrong place. In my opinion the job of a university is not to provide to any great extent courses and an education centered on the job market. This is why I'm so against studying economics and computer science as a major, because too many times this leads to a focused education.
The reason I would be wary of such a focused education is for two simple reasons:
(1) Education after high school should be trying to mature the student's thought processes. Earlier education only hinted at how to do things right, in college you should realize from scratch what's the right way to do something, either to appease yourself or to meet the requirements in some deteremined process.
(2) Education in college, though not only limited to the classroom, must have at its core some level of civic responsibility built in. We need students who are educated and aware of issues in their democratic government so that beyond the day to day job skills they will acquire, they might be able to positively contribute to the society at large and preserve democracy.
This is coming from the perspective of a student at a 'national' university where one might hope students weren't always driven by concerns of wealth and prosperity in a position at some banking firm.
Slashdot Mirror
First of all I must say that anyone asking a university to teach them job skills is obviously in the wrong place. In my opinion the job of a university is not to provide to any great extent courses and an education centered on the job market. This is why I'm so against studying economics and computer science as a major, because too many times this leads to a focused education.
The reason I would be wary of such a focused education is for two simple reasons:
(1) Education after high school should be trying to mature the student's thought processes. Earlier education only hinted at how to do things right, in college you should realize from scratch what's the right way to do something, either to appease yourself or to meet the requirements in some deteremined process.
(2) Education in college, though not only limited to the classroom, must have at its core some level of civic responsibility built in. We need students who are educated and aware of issues in their democratic government so that beyond the day to day job skills they will acquire, they might be able to positively contribute to the society at large and preserve democracy.
This is coming from the perspective of a student at a 'national' university where one might hope students weren't always driven by concerns of wealth and prosperity in a position at some banking firm.