My Idea Of A University

[guangdian 0]

My Idea of a University -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- With the debate approaching the climax, I was caught in the question:? What is your idea of a university? What have you come here for?? all of a sudden. For the sake of logic, I?d say these were indeed philosophically appealing questions, which prompted me to ponder over them conscientiously.To be absolutely honest, I didn?t think too much of the idea of a university. Given this opportunity, I should, at least, utter some sensible words so as not to embarrass the audience. ?A university is a place where I undertake passionate pursuit of my dreams. I?ve come here because I want to consummate myself comprehensively.? Concise and to the point though, I was yet wondering if I had given myself a satisfactory answer.The stereotype deeply being ingrained in our minds, we tend to take it for granted that a university is certainly a holy place for career training. Students from all corners of the country come to the university in order to gain some knowledge and practical skills considered important for future jobs. While at university, too large a number of students attach enormous importance to work part time. Instead of doing research into certain particular fields, they sacrifice what we call the unit of life, revolving around the privilege of wage earning. As a result, they tend to live a career?centered life most of the time. They have chosen their major and continue to choose a few courses relevant to their ideal job, unconsciously irrespective of their interests, likes or dislikes, let alone their inner need to develop human wisdom in terms of philosophy. The sole purpose of attending a university, as they comprehend, is to prepare them for future career to the greatest extent. There is an increase in this belief, now that students are influenced by the dense commercial atmosphere on campus. It has dominated and continues to dominate them as long as they hold this viewpoint of a university. With the misconception catching on, these days, at the mere mention of university, the majority will associate it with a fulfilling job.Granted, a university has the very function of career training, but there is tremendously more than that.After students have received fundamental knowledge in middle school, they come to the university to further develop their knowledge to a higher level. A university is, more often than not, associated with higher education. Higher education in itself is more than knowledge imparting and gaining. Since at university, the repetition of exams, which are devised to test the students? mastery of knowledge, occupies only a relatively short time, leaving most of the time for us to seek what we think worth pursuing. Constraining ourselves to a limited scope of subjects does more harm than good if we are to survive in this dynamically changing society. No one is guaranteed a well?paid job after graduation due to a university diploma. To me, I?d like to utilize the sources here to fulfill myself in a wide range of fields. Here is my personal comprehension of a university.A university, featured by its abundant subjects and variety of students, possesses its peculiar purposes. Career training lists on a low rank in the functions of a university. Individual character development, self?actualization, knowledge and interpersonal and some applied skills attainment, fall into the classification of goals at university. As a means to assist students in becoming complete as human beings, university takes over the sacred mission of fulfilling each single soul on campus with a firm set of philosophy. There are various pursuits on campus: keeping personal hobbies, developing individual interests, learning what appeals to us, thinking what interferes with our life, making decisions of diversified kinds, learning how to cooperate within a team, applying learned knowledge and skills into practice in ways of apprentice, to name but a few. We are supposed to devote ourselves to this kind of routine activities, enjoying what life has to offer and devise, either deliberately or just by coincidence. The meaning of a university falls into so many categories, capturing our minds firmly, urging us to ambitiously attain our attractive goals with perseverance, determination, vision, and integrity. Hence, a new version of the definition of a university by no means should be postponed. Inside a university, we are instructed with some basic theories, leading to further meditation to answer why the theoretical knowledge has to be the way it is. That?s what we elaborately call illumination. Illumination of its own kinds inspires us to logically and critically think over what blocks our mind. By doing this, we receive knowledge, but more significantly, we encourage ourselves to educate ourselves with all these bewilderment, curiosities, ambition, and above all, confidence. Human beings are born imperfect, imposing different obstacles on our life when we embark on our work or tasks. Therefore, room for improvement is inevitably existent. University at this point, serves the role of offering us the chance to analyze ourselves, to overcome the shortcomings we have with the knowledge and the practice we conduct in a thorough way. Self-- understanding, as evidence form human development holds, is never an easy case to deal with. Inspiration with proper instructions exerts its impact on us when we are aware of the urge to combat all that we want to abandon spiritually. University promises progress and development on one condition: the students are sufficiently sensitive to catch the hints and the advantage it gives on helping us to become what we are capable of being. This involves a permanent process, and the university is, to say the least, a minor stage designed for us to achieve consummation of human being with complete mentality, competency in certain fields, wit and wisdom through learning, what?s more important, practice.But what on earth is consummation?There is no immediate answer to it though; we do have clues to explain this abstract concept. A university, by providing education by means of broad courses and the freedom to learn, illustrates its multifunction. Gradually, we are led to comprehend the course of consummation step by step, because we are the ones to initiate a lifelong undertaking in which we discover who we are, what we want to be, and finally, how to become what we are capable of being. So the process of consummation, i.e. self?actualization is the gradual progress we obtain when pursuing our aims passionately as well as the achievement we reach during the pursuit.Such being the case, I am supposed to enjoy the opportunities and freedom to develop the way I relish, to become the person I?m capable of being. I despise the version of university life which is circulating career. I will be unceasingly granted the privilege of acquiring the level of intelligence, my standard of excellence, moral correctness and wrong doings due to the sensible training of a university.Overall, a university realizes its goal of training students through liberal education, affluent culture, and abundant instruction. In this way, we are able to mode our unique personality according to our mentality, capabilities, sensitivity, and physical vitality. It is best for me to quote the Nobel Literature Prize Winner---John Henry Newman on his words:? To set forth the right standard, and to train according to it, and to help forward all students towards it according to their various capacities, this I conceive to the business of a university.?

[guangdian 0]

The Rejected Sincerity My wonderful winter vacation would soon yield to the upcoming exhilarating, meaningful, fascinating, and challenging school days. I was expected to go back to the university the following day, so I had no relish for anything particular that night. Being fairly nostalgic, I found it thoroughly irresistible to reread those letters (received in my senior middle school), which were the evidence of joys and sorrows. A real reflection of my campus life, they were. I had a whale of time in the world of melodies when reading the letters. All of a sudden, I caught sight of a very cute envelope with a peculiar design in the front. Hence, my mind was caught and held tightly somewhere in the past.I had tremendous confidence in my own memory and believed that it was written by a lovely girl called Shirley. On a fairly hot evening, I was hastily going to the class room, irrespective of the fascinating sunset, when suddenly a certain girl caught up with me, stopping me on my way. At first, I felt both surprised and puzzled, pondering over her potential purpose. Afterwards, I took it for granted that many girls were hard to be comprehended by boys like me. Thrusting a letter into my hand, she whispered to me that it was specially written to me. With those passionate words, the girl shifted away, leaving no time for me to have a closer look at her physical feature or at least ask her for specific information about what was gong on, let alone offering me a second to figure out why this happened to me so mysteriously. Recently, the idea of receiving unexpected letters did not appeal to me at all, not a note at this time of year, because everyone--myself included, was then focusing on nothing rather than study?the NCEE (National College Entrance Examination) was approaching nearer and nearer that was presumed as a huge watershed of a lifetime. To a certain extent, our fate would be at the mercy of it. Therefore, it was nothing but repetitive revision that could ever rivet our attention in these days. So what was this letter for?When I got back to my seat, my classmates who had witnessed the entire process teased me, saying that an innocent girl expressed her puppy love to me by means of a sweet letter, in the belief that they?d got a nice diversity from their monotonous study. Somehow, I took no pleasure of it as though I lacked the power to control my mind which was then subject to study only. Opening the envelope, I saw an intriguing picture: a cartoon figure-- referring to me-- got the first place and I was blessed to do so. Besides, there was a distinctive handwritten letter in English (riddled with some obvious errors). Not until I finished reading it did I have a clue what was going on.