Should students study only their favorite subjects or subjects that they are good at?

     Each person is supposed to have an innate talent and a favourite area, which means a man probably specializes in at least one field. What is more, schooling is designed for everyone to realize their careers and therefore, it has long been taken into discussion that whether it is better to pay attention to only a few certain subjects at school or to spend time for all.

     For the start, in the meantime, general education is following the mode of making every lesson compulsory and as a result, each student with an ability sits in the same class with others with different abilities. They may have various tastes, for instance some love math while some others prefer biology, but they are obliged to study at the same pace and absorb the same amount of knowledge. Fortunately, most students are capable of finding how to keep up with the general speed, such as meeting teachers after class to ask about problems they are wondering and exchanging with friends. Besides, that going through a variety of subjects allows a student to figure out which one suits him/her; and learning all subjects gives a student a diverse understanding about the world. Without a doubt, people who possess a wide range of knowledge are usually regarded as being excellent and versatile. Their fields are commonly natural science (e.g. mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology) and social science (e.g. geography, history, literature), as many connections exist among these ones and people require quite a great deal of knowledge to do their jobs.

     However, after being able to determine the preferred subjects, students will pay optimal attention to them and ignore the rest because students want to concentrate instead of wasting their time learning unnecessary ones. In fact, it is not wrong and many people have done that: the most obvious examples are the selected teams taking part in competitions. These students have a distinct training environment and syllabus; more specifically, their learning is more difficult, plentiful and each person must win a medal or an award. In change, they are exceptionally prioritized by the school authority to skip other subjects and tests, having to attend only the training class. This may sound promising and interesting but the problem is, if they fail then how will those students make up for the loss of knowledge they have missed to pass the exams? 

     Thus, it boils down to people’s choice, rather than advice from educators. After all, acquiring a thorough knowledge from a variety of fields is still more admirable and essential than being knowledgeable in only one field. The reason is that society needs people who have enough ability and flexibility to deal with real life situations and have great contributions to the nation, not the one only knowing how to do one single job. 

     Author: Nguyen Thanh Nam, High School for Gifted Students