全英文泛读期中论文 - 副本

To Get In or Not To Get In ---a question for the students To Get In or Not To Get In ------a question for the students As is known to all, there has been a gradual decrease in the number of students who attend the College Entrance Examinations during recent years. This leads to some doubts of whether senior high graduates should persist on acquiring higher education from universities. I think the answer is yes. In my humble opinion, one of the reasons for which the number of students having the intention of getting into universities reduces is population. In China, the students are mostly about 18 to 19 years old, high school courses finished and ready to make their choices for their own future. However, as Family Planning policy has been carrying out since the last century, its effect is now significantly shown. Young people are less and aged ones become more. This is an old-age society that we have. So, to some extent, the situation isn’t as serious as we thought. On the other hand, the unemployed rates of undergraduates have been causing a stir---maybe not just ‘one stir’, but ‘a lot of stirs’, because the problem seems to have been existed for a long period of time---among the worried parents and children. They think it useless to get into universities to study while everybody---the ones who get college degrees and vice versa---all end up with no job to do. Some people come up with the idea of learning one specific skill in order to make a living and gain experience through practice. Then as time goes, working experience naturally accumulates; he or she becomes a proficient worker with no doubt. I have no objection to this idea, but don’t we feel a little bit sad over it that it seems we are being educated only for the sake of making money? What is the real meaning of education? I think we are educated for being a person who can live a happy life. Learning something in order to make money is only one of the reasons for studying. We all have dreams. Acquiring knowledge helps us realize those dreams. It’s horrible to find there are still lots of them unfulfilled when you are no longer capable of doing anything, even walking. One person can only feel satisfied with himself by looking back when old, saying, ‘oh, what a splendid life I’ve had.’ Sometimes, when I get tired of what is being done at hand, I would always stop to think all over again about why I’m doing this and imagine myself being very old and sitting in an armchair, regarding myself as a complete loser in retrospect as I didn’t realize my childhood dream due to my lack of perspiration and perseverance. Frankly speaking, I got freaked out each time I think of that. It’s really terrible to give up the hope of life. What we should do now is to make full use of every opportunity to acquire abilities when we are still young, including the ones that you might live on, like your major; or those interesting ones that can may accompany you during the rest of your life, such as painting or playing musical instruments. The list is endless. One may learn to appreciate a masterpiece with authentic respect and exclaim from the bottom of his heart that it’s the most magnificent artwork he has ever seen. Or one can stand in front of it with his head held high till he gets a sore neck, pretending to be watching with awe and respect. Even if he is wearing a fur coat and travel all the way abroad just to have a look at it., if he doesn’t know a thing or two about art, he is pathetic. When a person feels depressed or oppressed, he may also find strength and spiritual resources among the words of those great books, which eternal truths lies within .Or he can let it be, battling the blues bit by bit. And, if later on, a person has his own children. He may air his views on the things happened around in a penetrating perspective and teach the young something about this world. Or he could slip away when his children pull his fingers and requiring to know more. Polytechnics are just places that teach one techniques. They never teach you how to appreciate art from a more artistic view, to taste something bitter or something sweet in Balzac’s works, or to analyze social problems and learn from them. But universities can teach you all the things above. Those are the places that make a truly useful man out of an innocent person. Some people regard higher education as a sort of self-improvement. Being international champions and winning a great many gold medals, many Olympic stars in our country still go to universities for further study. Of course they don’t study for a living. They do it for self-cultivation, for one thing called self-accomplishment in the pursuit of knowledge. As far as I know, Guo Jinjin and Wu Minxia both study in the People’s University of China. The Olympic champion, Deng Yaping, went to study in Qinghua University in 1997 majoring in English and Management after she ended her career as an athlete. Later, she went to England and studied in Cambridge and the University of Nottingham, gaining Doctor’s degrees from both of the universities. Apart from those Olympic stars, lots of aged people also called out ‘never too old to learn’. Grandmas and grandpas go to college with their grandchildren. One adorable old lady, perhaps in her eighties, went to university to fulfill her dream as the first university student in her family and listened to professors in class with people nearly the same age as her grand-grandchild. And of course we can’t forget Jin Yong, a talented writer, who gained his Doctor’s degree from St.John College of the University of Cambridge at the ripe old age of 86. See the attitude of athletes and old people towards higher education and you will soon realize how important it is. It is not that we should do what others do, but that the trend can really show something important. There indeed has been a decrease in the number of students going through College Entrance Examination, but something hasn’t changed. Competitions to gain the entrance of top universities are still fierce. This means students and parents still have faith in higher education. So I can’t help thinking if the doubts above come from the students who get relatively lower scores in exams. No offence, though. I think they shouldn’t be so impatient. In this impetuous society nowadays, we really have to calm down and see things coolly. Education isn’t just about giving you the ability of making money. It trains the students into people who know something about life and the world. Of course, if you can make sure that you could be fully developed in both wisdom of life and the techniques you learn, then you don’t have to spend your time in universities. Students have great varieties to choose from. Going abroad is one of the hottest choices of thousands of students who long for the outside world and have a change in their lives. But before they could think straight, temptations of all kinds from the society pour in their minds, and they forget all about the intention of learning to understand life. So only a few of these people could ever get to succeed in doing so. As for students who go to polytechnics, they lack necessary environment. Sometimes the atmosphere plays a very important role in education. A good atmosphere enforces the thirst to learn. ‘When in Rome, do as the Romans do’. Some of the top universities in China are famous for their diligent students, many of whom say that they were actually studying like everyone else around, but amazed at themselves when looked back and found many things done. Maybe this is one of the reasons why top universities are still preferable choices of graduate students. However, there are also some phenomenons that can’t be ignored. · On the one hand, quite a number of graduate students find themselves in an embarrassing situation where they find what they get as a job actually has nothing to do with their majors. This indicates that the education system should be improved by means of reform, which has nothing to do with the university education itself. We need a new system to select students. · First, I don’t think students should be forced to learn all the subjects like the old pattern of education. We always find ourselves learning all day but don’t actually make use of them in real life. Like geometry, do we need to analyze the figures when doing chores? I bet almost everyone has seen a sitcom called the Big Bang Theory. The two characters, Leonard and Sheldon, are definitely genius in the field of science. But when it comes to social activities or their own lives, they become nuts. That is why we call it sitcom. Anyway, some subjects should become elective courses, which only people who are really keen on them choose to study. And this practice might help to select potential scientists and put more attention on individuals. · Second, we should pay more attention to personal specialities. There are not even two leaves in the world the same with each other, let alone people. Each person is born with his or her features which no one else could imitate. Why not develop them since they are naturally equipped? A naughty boy who knocks on everywhere today might become a famous drummer tomorrow; a girl who takes an interest in observing ants could become a zoologist in the future. All they need is proper guidance. · Third, colleges in every university should admit all of the qualified students without limiting the numbers. This idea is to make sure every person have access to what they really want to learn. The education system today force students to learn what they don’t want to learn and it leads to a strange social phenomenon. A graduate student from Beijing University didn’t get a job like his classmates did, but end up selling pork. Rumor has it that the student had intended to study his beloved major of economy, but his scores wasn’t high enough. According to his agreement of transferring when applying for the university, he was later transferred to the major of nuclear engineering. Fearing that nuclear substances might do harm to his health, the student gave up his career as a scientist and returned home. If he had learned economy as he wished, things would have been totally different then. Years of education don’t just teach a person how to sell meat; you should use your knowledge to change the world, push forward the society a little bit, even if you only have one breakthrough throughout your life, even if you only have one invention to be proud of, it’s well worth the efforts made by the country, your teachers, your parents and yourself. Plus, there won’t be crazes for certain majors, as parents and children will have to consider seriously about the prospect for what they choose. Students can make choices of what is indeed useful, unique or in great demand in society. The flexibility will reduce the chances of intellectual-waste---a compound word that I made up, referring to the fact that some excellent students failed to get ideal jobs to make full use of what they have learnt---and give force to the competition among peers so that students make progress more quickly. · On the other hand, polytechnic students do as well as or even better than university students on jobs and a great many firms and companies prefer to receive the former as employees . I think this dues to a lack of practice of university students. Frankly speaking, universities, especially the ones that put more emphasis on science and engineering, should make students get more practical trainings and encourage colleges to put more money on laboratories, apparatuses, competitions of innovations, exchange programs, etc. Say, MIT, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is almost a paradise for scientific geniuses all around the world. We call it ‘a nerds’ heaven.’ Students there always come up with strange ideas and do experiments on them. They are active, imaginative and creative. Maybe these words fail to describe their features, but in a word, many of them are princes or princesses in the field of science. The previous MIT students invented artificial legs, penicillin and other things, a great number of which have been contributing a lot to the world. As English majors, we often do lots of comprehensive reading. Among the numerous passages are scientific ones, in which we would always find MIT students putting forward their new ideas after doing a number of experiments with their professors. Why couldn’t we find even a slightest trace of Chinese colleges among pieces of the evidence which the writer provide to support his views? MIT students even do experiments on their teachers. I remember reading an article on psychology. The students of the whole class had communicated beforehand and divided themselves into two groups. One group was in the left of the classroom, and the other in the right. They sat quietly as their teacher entered the classroom. Later on, he began his class. But when he walked to the left of the classroom, the students made noises by dropping pencils, coughing, and talking. On the contrary, they quieted down quickly when the professor walked to the right. The poor man ended up standing rigidly in a right corner of the classroom. Of course he didn’t do so on purpose. It was the students’ reactions that made him unconsciously affected. This experiment showed that although we don’t want to do things according to the wills of others, we are inevitably influenced by them. Foreign universities care about even the slightest aspect of one subject. That’s why many of them are the cream of the crop. Chinese students prefer paying more attention to big projects, like robots. We don’t usually see them doing experiments on something small but interesting, let alone doing experiments on their own teachers. Maybe this is because of cultural differences. But we must keep in mind that experiments are essential to students, which may significantly arouse their interests and inspire new ideas. ‘Knowledge is power.’ It is said that powers like the US and Britain surpass our country in social development for about 50 years, so what is happening to them now may take place in China tomorrow. To some extent, we can take those developed countries as references in terms of education. America has long been famous for its high per capita cultural level. Ranking the first in the number of people who have taken university or higher education among all the other countries worldwide, Uncle Sam is a well-educated ‘uncle’, who has been playing a leading role in the process of making contribution to the global village. Why is it that it is not some of the African countries but the US that lead the world? It’s because of their higher educational level. Education is essential not only to individuals, but also to the country, or further to the human race. In China, we have long been used to the fact that we have a policy called, ‘developing the country by relying on science and education’. But most people think it merely to be words kept in mind when doing exam papers. Like what our history teacher said, ‘It seems that Chinese people don’t usually take interests in political affairs.’ But we have to be conscious of the importance of education. Despite of those countless personal benefits, it is our responsibility to be well-educated. Only if we are equipped with the intellectual advantages can we make our country all the more prosperous. I have always been fond of a poem named Youth, written by Samuel Ullman. Youth is not a time of life; it is a state of mind; It is not a matter of rosy cheeks, red lips and supple knees; It is a matter of the will, a quality of the imagination, vigor of the emotions; It is the freshness of the deep spring of life. … Staying curious about this world makes a person excellent. It can even keep a man young mentally though he might be old in appearance. Why? Because curiosity keeps him thinking all the time and therefore he searches for answers to his questions. Thirsting for knowledge means he still thinks it is not late for him to know more and wants to live happier. If we don’t have a thirst for knowledge, we are no different with the dead. I sometimes suppose myself to be a person in her fifties and see things from her point of view. There’re always a lot to consider, family, children, house chores, etc. Health problems occur from time to time; No freedom, unlikely to change the present situation of life and see new things, parents and my beloved elder sister passed away one by one…Then, I realize how happy I am now. Looking forward to the future, being young both physically and mentally, curious about this world, able to read, healthy, not so much to worry about, having the chance to see my parents once a week, begging my sis to buy me clothes… I treasure them all. The longing for knowledge, as well as youth we mentioned above, are both something we are enjoying now but could probably disappear later with no turning back. The value of them could not be recognized until we lose them. What we should do is to make the best of them, learn more, do more, and if possible, be a ‘young’ old man in the future. So, as for the people who intended not to attend university, I feel pity for them. Being young both mentally and physically is one thing that could only happen once in a life time. Cherish and be thankful for all the chances that we have. One’s life is in his or her own hand and there’s nothing anyone else could do about it. So, grab the chance and enroll in the university. We live and learn, and there’s no end to it. (About 3,105 words)