The following appeared in a letter from a staff member in the office of admissions at Argent University:
“The most recent nationwide surveys show that undergraduates choose their major field primarily based on their perception of job prospects in that field. At our university, economics is now the most popular major, so students must perceive this field as having the best job prospects. Therefore, we can increase our enrollment if we focus our advertising and recruiting on publicizing the accomplishments of our best-known economics professors and the success of our economics graduates in finding employment.”
Discuss how well reasoned you find this argument. In your discussion be sure to analyze the line of reasoning and the use of evidence in the argument. For example, you may need to consider what questionable assumptions underlie the thinking and what alternative explanations or counterexamples might weaken the conclusion. You can also discuss what sort of evidence would strengthen or refute the argument, what changes in the argument would make it more logically sound, and what, if anything, would help you better evaluate its conclusion.
The excerpt provided is a letter from admissions office staff member of Argent University recommending to advertise the economics department and to publicize its professor’s achievements in order to lure student enrolment that year. The conclusion is based on a nationwide survey suggesting that, students chose major departments based on their job prospects. The conclusion is based upon unsupported claims and is constructed on loosely developed assumptions. There are many gaps in the survey details and the economics department being famous as below.
The author has based his entire argument on the fact a nationwide survey suggests that students chose their major based on the job security it offers. But , there are no enough details provided regarding the survey such as questions asked, age factor of the audience , percentage of students involved in the survey . Maybe the survey was conducted among a group of people who are no- where related to educational field. Also, according to the outcome of the survey, students only look for job opportunities after graduation. But opinions would differ individually .The author has failed to convince the fact the survey has reached the right target audience and the outcome has strongly proven that students want only placements after their graduation with proper empirical data.
Secondly, the major assumption here is the field economics being popular in Argent university. And the reason behind it being that, it promises job security for the students in the future. There is no data and past record showing and substantiating the same. There may be many factors and facts for department of economics to be famous. An analysis of reasons amongst the current students and a report of the previous passed out students of the same department and their current job placements would have been more convincing from the author’s side to make this claim.
Finally, the author wants to implement the plan of advertising and publicizing the success of economics departments and its professor’s achievements. With this plan, the university might miss a big opportunity to showcase any other department’s huge success , which would eventually make them loose their prospective candidates looking for different course opportunities.
To conclude , had the staff considerably strengthened the argument by providing more insights about the survey , the reasons behind economics being famous amongst students is that it promises a secure job placement after graduating, then the claim would have been convincing. Otherwise, it looks like a biased opinion of the author to favour a department without supporting data.
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- The following appeared in a letter from a staff member in the office of admissions at Argent University The most recent nationwide surveys show that undergraduates choose their major field primarily based on their perception of job prospects in that field