Educational institutions have a responsibility to dissuade students from pursuing fields of study in which they are unlikely to succeed.

There are cases where one would spend many years in a field only to fail in the end. Fear of such an outcome is perhaps why the speaker claims that educational institutions should have the responsibility to dissuade students from pursuing fields in which they are unlikely to succeed. After all, such institutions are likely to contain experts from the field of said student, and they would know better than anyone present about the characteristics required for a successful career. However, although such a claim is justifiable, I do not believe that the speaker is entirely correct. Success in a field comes in many factors, skill, aptitude, knowledge, interest, and luck just to name a few, instead of deterring students from any field, the responsibility of the institution should be to cultivate certain aspect of the student to better suit the area of his or her interest. After all the job of educational facilities is to promote, not to hinder, the pursuit of knowledge.

As mentioned above, it is true that in many cases, it is the experts within an educational institution that knows best about the current trend of the various fields, and thus would probably have a clearer idea than most about whether a student will fit in. However, no one could say for certain how any field is going develop in the future, and what kind of character one would have possess in order to adapt and succeed. Max Planck, one of the founding fathers of quantum physics, just to name one, was advised by his college instructor to give a pursuit in physics, because “everything is already discovered, all that remains is to fill in a few holes.” Many milestones in our academic society would not have been achieved if everyone listened to such encouragement from academic institutions.

In any event, the job of educational institutions is not to decide whether or not a prospective student is suited for any particular field—it is the job of employment agencies to do that. The main responsibility of any educational institution is, as its name suggests, education. True, certain personalities could align a student closer to certain fields compared to others, but such traits are just one of the factors that would determine success in such fields. Dedication, determination, and above all an interest in the field are all deciding factors that cannot be easily detected. And usually it is such traits, combined with luck, which contributed more to success in any given field. Without a sure way of assessing these traits, it would be difficult, not to say the least irresponsible, for educational institutions or any other organizations to tell a student what to do and what not to do when choosing a field.

Instead of requiring institutions to give students career advice, we could develop programs to allow students with doubts to come and inquire about their fields. This is why in many education facilities, there is at least a variation of career councilor.