大學的意義

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University is seen as a place where young adults, and I use that term cautiously, can let their hair down for three (or more) years, drink, party and generally have a good time. It is, for many, the first opportunity to experience life outside of the parental nest, where being fed, clothed, cleaned up after and organised are suddenly no longer rights but personal responsibilities.

人們將大學視為青年人(我慎重地使用這一詞)盡情享受三年(或更長)好時光的地方,喝酒,聚會,過得開心自在。對于許多人來說,這是第一次體驗離開家長所營造的安樂窩的生活。突然之間,吃穿住行不再是坐享其成,而成了個人的義務。

Ultimately, however, university is supposed to have a purpose, a meaning behind the madness. It's supposed to give you not just life skills but training that will allow you to become a productive member of the workforce. So what can a graduate having studied a non-vocational subject for three years offer a potential employer? Apparently not very much.

然而,在瘋狂的背后,大學最終應該有目的和意義。它不僅給你生存的技能,還將使你成為對社會有貢獻的人。一名受了三年非職業(yè)教育的畢業(yè)生能給可能的雇主帶去什么呢?顯然不多。

A friend who works for Lloyd's of London recently told me that he would rather employ someone who had 'lived in the real world' for a few years than a recent graduate. His logic was that graduates are taught abstract ideas and encouraged to write essays with distant deadlines, neither of which prepares them for the pressing demands of work.

近日,一位在勞埃德船舶保險公司工作的朋友告訴我,他寧可雇傭“在真實世界生活”幾年的人,也愿不雇傭剛畢業(yè)的大學生。他的邏輯是,畢業(yè)生學的是抽象概念,寫的是標題空洞的論文,這些都不能使他們達到工作的迫切要求。

The fact that the overall number of students has almost doubled in the UK over the past decade to just under 2.5 million in 2005/6 means that simply having a degree has lost at least some of its value in the eyes of employers. This has massively increased the importance of career-orientated work experience so that companies can train potential future employees in the job before they officially begin to work for them. This is not only energy saving but cost effective for the employer as the work experience is usually either low paid or completely unpaid. It also, however, means that only those who can afford not to work during breaks from university can truly reap the benefits.

近十年來,英國大學生總數(shù)幾乎翻了一番,2005-2006年度,人數(shù)已接近250萬,這意味著在雇主眼中,學歷已經(jīng)貶值。因此,以職業(yè)為導向的工作經(jīng)驗的重要性大大增加,公司可以在將來的雇員正式為其工作前對他們進行培訓。對于雇主來說,這不僅節(jié)省精力,還節(jié)約成本,因為雇員實習往往薪水很少,甚至是免費的。不過,這也意味著只有那些假期時不需工作的人才能真正得到實惠。

On top of this, students whose parents have high-earning jobs will be in a much better position to gain work experience either directly with their parents or through their business contacts. The inevitable effect of this is to widen the social gap between the well off and people from less wealthy backgrounds and reaffirm the problems of the class-based structure that the government is so keen to announce that it has abolished.

除此之外,家長收入高的學生能更方便地獲得工作經(jīng)驗,無論是和家長一起工作,還是通過家長的業(yè)務伙伴找到機會。這就不可避免地造成出身富裕與出身貧窮學生之間的差距拉大,并且再次證實基于階級的結(jié)構問題,而政府卻急切地宣布這一問題已得到解決。

Furthermore if career-orientated work experience is becoming a requirement for employment then the implication is that students should have decided upon a career before applying for university. Not only does this undermine the study of almost all non-vocational subjects (unless if the student plans a career in academia), but it also further narrows the breadth of education that is received by students in Britain. In the US, the first year of study at university provides introductory classes in a range of subjects that encourages students to sample a large variety of areas before specialising. Harvard University, for example, has have what it calls core curriculum whereby:

此外,如果以職業(yè)為導向的工作經(jīng)驗成了雇傭的要求之一,那么這就意味著,學生應該在申請大學之前就決定未來從事什么職業(yè)。這不僅會損害幾乎所有非職業(yè)課程(除非學生打算從事學術),而且會進一步壓縮英國學生所受教育的范圍。在美國,大學第一年會開設許多專業(yè)的介紹性課程,鼓勵學生體驗不同的領域,再來選擇專業(yè)。比如,哈佛大學有著其所稱的核心課程:

Undergraduates must devote almost a quarter of their studies to courses in the following areas of the programme: foreign cultures, historical study, literature and arts, moral reasoning, quantitative reasoning, science, and social analysis.

本科生必須把將近四分之一的學習用于以下課程:外國文化、歷史研究、文學與藝術、道德推理、定量推理、自然科學和社會分析。

Britain, in contrast, forces its students to pick their specialisation before they have even finished their A-level course. To effectively make career-targeted work experience a mandatory addition to a graduate's CV is to force the choice of a future career at a very early stage of development and therefore further limit the choices that the student will have later on.

相反,英國則要求學生在高級水平課程還未結(jié)束時就選擇他們主修的課程。為使畢業(yè)生簡歷上都有以職業(yè)為目標的工作經(jīng)驗,英國強制要求學生在成長的早期階段就選擇將來的職業(yè),這再次限制了學生將來選擇的余地。

The government's aim to have 50% of school leavers in university by 2010 is only likely to exacerbate the problem. If employers want students to have particular skills within their chosen field then the arts subjects, save for those who want to become artists, writers or academics, will become effectively pointless, producing ever increasing numbers of people who will leave university no more employable than when they arrived. A survey published recently suggests that students may already be feeling the effects of this pressure as 20% of new students fail to complete their course.

政府計劃到2010年有50%中學生上大學,此舉可能只會加劇這一問題。如果雇主希望學生在其選定的領域內(nèi)有特定技能的話,那文科課程(想成為藝術家、作家或?qū)W者的人除外)就會變得無關緊要,培養(yǎng)出來的人不比剛進大學時更符合雇傭要求。最近一份調(diào)查顯示,學生已經(jīng)感到這種壓力,有20%的大學新生未能完成其課程。

As a graduate of the arts myself I am not suggesting that the country requires a return to the two-tier system of the universities and the polytechnics, but a change in policy by both the government and employers must be countenanced. The priorities and demands of the two seem to be progressively more at odds with each other, making some parts of the job market nearly inaccessible to many newly made graduates. It seems ridiculous for any government to set such specific educational targets and put so much strain on Britain's educational infrastructure if the market does not appear to demand them.

作為文科畢業(yè)生,我不是建議國家回歸綜合大學與理工科大學并存的二元制,而是政府和雇主必須改變政策。二者的重點與需求往往不一致,使得許多大學畢業(yè)新生無法進入部分就業(yè)市場。任何政府設定如此具體的教育目標都是很可笑的,如果市場不予以接受,英國的教育將承受巨大的壓力。

Equally, however, employers must develop new ways of distinguishing between candidates without discriminating against those who have not enjoyed access to their chosen career before graduating. With the introduction of top-up fees it seems that more than ever the biggest thing that students are getting from attending university is debt.

同樣,雇主應該開發(fā)區(qū)分應征者的新途徑,不應該歧視那些在畢業(yè)前沒有相關行業(yè)工作經(jīng)驗的人。有了附加學費之后,似乎學生上大學的最大收獲是債務,這已越來越明顯。