 Sun Sep 23, 2007 11:41 am TOEFL essay: All university students should be required to take history... |
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Question: Do you agree or disagree with the following statement? All university students should be required to take history courses no matter what field they study in. Use specific reasons and details to support your opinion.
History courses are required to some university students nowadays. There are many opinions about that. Some think that it is just waste of time and usuless. To me, college students should take history courses because it not only makes them wiser but it also balance their mind, and most importantly, it makes them become more usuful and human.
First of all, history courses make people wiser. The more history you learn, the wiser you are. For example, if you leran Vietnamese history, you know that the Quang Trung King has moved as quicky as seven days to cover a distance up to thousands of kilometers without any modern vehicles, which still is a mystery to scientists today. Also, if you read “Tam Quoc Chi”, a well known Chinese classic work, you could imagine how violent it was the war in Chinese for a while, or you could admire Khong Minh, a famous adviser, with his interesting schemes. Or if you read “Phong Than”, you may wonder why Khuong Tu Nha went fishing with no hook, and you could find out some usuful lessons for youself.
Second, learning history balances your mind. We all know that our brain consists of two parts; each part has its own function. While right brain is associated with artistic abilities like singing, painting, writing poetry, etc, left brain dominated people tend to be more logical and analytical in their thinking and usually excel at mathematics. So if you have used your left brain for a long time in scientific field, it’s a good idea for you to balance your brain by using the other. One way to do so is to listen to a song or, in our case, to change your subject to history or something related to it. For example, if you are tired after a long time soving math problems or coding computer programs, you will then feel better if you read a historical book or watch a historical film.
Last but not least, history helps you become more useful and human. As history makes you a wise person and it prevent you from being stressful, you will work better and more effectively. Indeed, you can draw some valuable conclusions from the art of war of Ton Tan, a good general in China, and then apply them in your business. Most importantly, “having rised and fell” with many stories in the past, you will be more generous and human. You will be moved when seing Ms Dau, in the “Tat Den” of Ngo Tat To, had to sell her little child for other people’s lives in her family. Also, you will get angry when knowing the landowner asked her to come to his house at night. As a result, from now you will be ready to help the poor as well as to struggle for social justice. Isn’t that the goal for everybody in the world trying to reach to?
In short, although learning history seems to be useless and waste of time at first, it helps you so much as it not only keeps your mind healthy but sometimes makes you wealthy by giving such a excellent decision as in art of war, and all of all, it makes you a real human being. Why don’t you try it today? |
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phuoc
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Joined: 23 Sep 2007
Posts: 4
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