It is often said that teaching specific careers is much more beneficial to students because they can prepare for their future lives. However I believe that teaching general subjects is more valuable in the long term for the following two reasons: it will give students more job opportunities and widen social network.
To begin with, teaching general subjects allows students to obtain skills in various fields, and it will give a wide range of job oppotunities. This is because many companies now prefer employees who are good at many things rather than one specific subject. According to the study that is conducted by Seoul National University in 2008, 80% of companies announced that they will focus more on the range of abilities that the employees obtain when they hire people. This shows the importance of knowing general subjects and abilities to deal with those.
In addition, teaching general subjects will give students a chance to improve social skill. It is an undeniable fact that people can make friends easily if they have something in common. Thus, if people have a wide range of knowledge, they can also make a variety of friends. From my personal experience, I learned general subjects when I was in high school, so I always have something to talk about with others even though they are majoring different fields. This was a very good chance for me to make many friends in the freshman year, which could have been very hard time for new students.
In brief, teaching general subjects will help students to get a better job and widen their social network. All in all, teachers need to put more effort to teach general subjects than particular careers for students' long term future lives.
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