19. (20170114) Since university students have a long break between semesters, the university requires all students to do one of the following for a month during the break:

— Students must take a course on the subject that has no direct connection to their majors of study. (For example, a student majoring in engineering may take course in fine arts or social science.)

— Students must volunteer to work in the university's city or their hometowns to improve some aspects of life of the city or their own town. (For example, students may help local primary school children with their homework.)

Which one do you think is more beneficial for students in their university? Why?

头脑风暴

大学要求所有学生在长假期间做一下两件事中的一件，你认为哪件会给学生带来更大的好处？为什么？

——上一门不相关的课（比如工程系学生上美术或社会学的课）。

——做义工（比如回到小学帮助孩子们完成作业）。

我们来分析一下两个选择各自的优缺点：

上课：拓展自己的知识面，让生活更加丰富；让学生更加确定自己的专业；可以从其他学科中获取灵感。

做义工：回馈社会，让underprivileged孩子也能接受好的教育，让病人得到应有的关怀等；培养学生的责任感和耐心，对于塑造未来的leaders很有帮助。

范文思路

论点：上一门和自己专业领域不相关的课更有帮助。

理由一：拓展自己的知识面，让生活更加丰富。

理由二：从其他学科中获取灵感。

理由三：可能会对自己的专业有意想不到的帮助。

范文文本

One of the numerous benefits of being a college student is being able to spend their time entirely according to their own will. However, recently, a university has obligated the students either to take a course unrelated to one's major or to do some volunteer work. Although many students have deplored this requirement on the ground that the university is invading their personal time, I tend to believe that the former can actually be beneficial to the students' overall development.

First of all, by taking such a course, a student can largely enrich his personal life rather than being confined to a single field. In fact, I believe that the students studying STEM majors should be especially grateful of this policy because it is not uncommon that scientific researchers lead a monotonic and tedious life that only takes place in their laboratories and their residences. Despite the fact that these scientists dedicate all their time to their profession, they rarely become the cream of their respective fields. Throughout the course of history, we can easily discover that almost all high-achieving scientists have led colorful and meaningful lives, actively participating in activities outside of their academic field. For example, Albert Einstein, one of the fathers of modern physics, while being an esteemed physicist, was also quite skilled at playing the violin and had a rather vibrant social life. As a result, I believe that taking a course in a different field of study is the first step towards leading a meaningful life.

Second of all, many people can find themselves teeming with inspirations when they engage in activities irrelevant to their work. In fact, according to a study conducted by the cognitive science department of Northwestern University, a group of 30 volunteers showed an increase in their creativity level after conducting six distinctly different tasks while another group showed no significant change after conducting the same task. In addition, this is also corroborated by American physicist Richard Feynman, a Nobel laureate and one of the founders of quantum electrodynamics, an important branch of modern physics. He once admitted that his various hobbies such as playing the bongo, cracking safes and painting concretely aided him in coming up with new ideas in his research.

Last but not least, taking a course seemingly irrelevant to one's professional field can yield surprising fruit in the future. Christopher Nolan once said in an interview that as a director, his job is not to excel at a particular field but rather to be familiar with everything. In other words, a director needs to be versatile in order to produce high quality movies for the audience. Obviously, if a director only took courses in the film major, he would not be able to do so. Another great example is Steve jobs, a co-founder of Apple, one of the largest corporations in this century. He once recollected that when he was in college, he suddenly got bored and took a calligraphy course in the fine arts department. Years later, when he was designing the operating system for the Macintosh, the first-generation apple computer, he suddenly found the old fonts of computer systems so hideous that he decided to create a new one. This was when his calligraphy course came in handy. If not for his cavalier decision of taking that course, we would still have to put up with the hideous characters on our computer screens instead of the agreeable ones we have right now.

In a nutshell, I strongly recommend that students all take a course outside their academic field during the long break as they will not be disappointed by the outcome.

语料积累

according to their own will 根据自己的意愿

deplore 谴责

on the ground that 根据，由于

be confined to 被限制在

monotonic 单调的

cream 精华，精英人士

vibrant 有活力的

be corroborated by 被……证实

versatile 多才多艺的

calligraphy 书法

cavalier 漫不经心的

hideous 丑陋的