Universities should require students to take courses only within those fields they are interested in studying.Write a response in which you discuss your views on the policy and explain your reasoning for the position you take. In developing and supporting

The research conducted by N.C.E.R.T, a body responsible for managing schools curriculum in India, in 2016 asserted that students are forced to study many subjects, which are found to be unrelated to their goals and aspirations and thus schools are putting them under unnecessary pressure of extra time and cost required to study those subjects. The study, therefore, recommended schools to provide the opportunity to students to choose their subjects. While there are no reservations that universities should encourage the students to study as per their interests, there are reasons to believe that this permissive policy leads to limited understanding and knowledge among students. Students, inherently, like to reduce the number of subjects in order to prevent themselves from burden or mental stress, the policy of allowing them to choose subjects as per their interests often ends up ignorance or oblivion among students about other subjects, which are disliked by students, but are beneficial for their careers.

The first reason that supports the idea of including all necessary subjects in curriculum is that students, by nature, are empty minded and are not in a position to shape their interests comprehensively, thus the choice of subjects should not be left to students. Students of junior schools do not know how the interest in physics coincides with the comprehensive study of mathematics, since physics involves mathematical equations to understand physics. A good example of this is the research conducted by Behavioral Society of India in 2010 with the objective to ascertain how the life of a student evolves from school life to successful career. The research concluded that the students who were interested in arts, drama, theater for their career, were unaware about how the subjects on drawing, painting and story writing would be beneficial for them later in life, since students in this study conceded that these subjects were found to be unaligned as per their interests initially, but due to the strict school curriculum they studied at and later realized that these subjects provided them the background or foundation to create plots for drama and theater. Therefore, students are young and inexperienced and thus, should not be allowed to study only those subjects that interests them.

Second reason that buttresses the idea of teaching all subjects is that the interest of some students in specific subjects is established because of the high demand of that subject in job markets, but job markets are fickle which students are unaware of. The world today is facing many changes that were never witnessed before 1990, since in some countries subjects such as computer science or engineering is in demand, but due to the increase in trade tensions among countries, companies are reluctant to hire more engineers since the demand for goods are declining rapidly. This can be illustrated by the time period of 1912 to 1945, when there was a surge in nuclear engineering since countries were focussed on developing nuclear weapons to threat other countries. However, after 1945, when United Nations established and nuclear non-proliferation treaties were signed among countries, the demand for nuclear scientists declined sharply and students with those degrees were helpless to find jobs in unrelated or uninterested fields. Hence, the changing nature of jobs, which is foundational to students' interests, caution schools to not to implement students' interests policy.

However, one argument that asserts that studying the subjects as per interests can be beneficial is that students would be able to concentrate more on their chosen subjects and it would also allow them to save time and cost, which could have been wasted on uninterested subjects. It is widely believed that students after completing the studies enter the job markets and the most students like to join those jobs that are in harmony with their interest. It is known that those employees perform well who are interested in their jobs, which are results of their subjects that they studied in schools or colleges. It provides students the opportunity to enjoy self-satisfaction and gratification later in job-oriented life. For instance, the research conducted by Naukri.com, a job seekers portal company, in 2015 concluded that employers are inclined to hire those employees, who had studied subjects as per their own will and interests, since productivity of those students was found to be significant. Thus, interests of students are beneficial for the job market that they are expected to join later in life.

As can be seen from above paragraphs that although choosing subjects according to the interests provides the students self-satisfaction and gratification and also helps them to save time and money, students, by being young and naive, are not in a position to give shape to their interests and thus vulnerable to the limited perspective. Therefore, universities should encourage students to study possible tangential subjects, which are beneficial for their comprehensive development.